


The Unwinding of Loki

by dvs



Series: The Unwinding of Loki [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, Avenger Loki, Loki Does What He Wants, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Steve and Loki could be a thing if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 96,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dvs/pseuds/dvs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unsure of his place on Asgard, Loki runs away to Midgard.</p><p><i>Wherever the fates lead us let us follow</i> - Virgil</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“From the beginning. Go.”

“... Very well. In the beginning, there was a grand plan, by he who is the grandest of them all, Odin. The plan was to defeat the Frost Giants, save the galaxy and be home in time for victory pleasantries with the queen. It was... a good plan. However, though the Frost Giants were defeated, they were left bitter and just strong enough to be a nuisance. Odin returned with an abandoned child and, the way I have been told, there was not much room left for marital pleasantries on that day.”

“Look, if this is going to be like Asgard's version of Pride and Prejudice, we're going to need to order a takeaway or something. You like pizza?”

“Pepperoni and ham. Extra cheese.”

“... Pizza it is. Continue.”

# *

# 

Heimdall had stared at the baby with some degree of horror, which was interesting because Odin was sporting an empty socket where his eye once used to be and Heimdall hadn't even looked surprised. “What do you mean to do with the child? We are not Frost Giants, so we cannot eat it.”

Odin gave Heimdall a one-eyed glare. He really was becoming a little more casual in his dislike of the Jotuns in recent days. “They are savage, but I am certain they do not eat their young.”

“No,” Heimdall said, pausing for effect to the degree that a new galaxy had been born somewhere before he added, “They just leave them to perish.”

Odin held the child close, smiling at how quiet he was, that trusting innocent look of his – Odin frowned. The little devil had relieved himself in the All-Father's hand. “Heimdall, your cloak, my friend.”

“You have a cloak,” Heimdall pointed out.

Odin gave Heimdall an irritated scowl and shifted the child while bringing around his cloak to wipe and then hold the child _in_ the cloak for any future eventualities. He shook his head as he looked at the giggling baby. “How could anyone leave such an innocent to perish?”

“The Jotuns are cruel and barbaric and have disproportionately small genitalia.”

Odin frowned. “They do?”

“I have heard,” Heimdall said with a nod. Odin chuckled quietly and stroked the child's face. Heimdall sighed. “I know what you mean to do with the child.”

Odin gave Heimdall a look. “He is a Jotun prince. He must be raised as a prince. Who knows where his destiny lies? He could be the one who unites us with Jotunheim one day.”

“The child left to perish by his own kind?” Heimdall asked flatly. “Doubtful.”

“Why must you be such a doomsayer?”

“Why must you be so blind?” Odin's eyes... eye narrowed. Heimdall shifted uncomfortably and asked, “Too soon?”

# *

Later in the day as Odin watched Frigga cradling the baby, he had realised that the loss of an eye was the best way to soften the blow of a suddenly expanded family. Frigga could be heard ranting and raving from the other end of the palace, news of the child having reached her, asking who Odin thought he was bringing home babies as if she was an everlasting fountain of maternal instinct, just waiting for children to fill her lap.

It was while she was weeping over the loss of his eye he had discreetly manoeuvred the child into her lap and said, “He is not as heavy as Thor was.”

Tears in her eyes, Frigga had laughed at Odin and said, “No child could be.”

Odin covered her hand and said, “I will find a good noble family for him, if you wish it. You do not have to tolerate something for which you did not ask.”

Frigga looked up at Odin, holding the boy close. “Children are to be loved, not tolerated. Anyone who knows the truth about this child, will only ever tolerate him.”

“And you?” Odin asked.

Frigga looked down at the child, sadness clouding her features. He knew she saw the same thing he had. Innocent trusting eyes. Odin stiffened at the memory of his hand suddenly warm and wet. Frigga was wearing a particularly fetching dress too. 

Frigga gasped as the child caught her finger and gurgled. She laughed at him, which prompted laughter from the child accompanied by a furious kicking of legs. She sighed and said, “I think he is staying.”

Odin smiled and leaned forward to embrace her. She promptly pushed him back and said, “I said _he_ is staying.”

# *

There was a second grand plan. Loki would grow beside Thor as his brother. One would rule Asgard. The other would rule Jotunheim one day. Nothing could go wrong with this plan. 

# *

“I fear you have lost more than your eye,” Heimdall pointed out on hearing the plan. “You think the Jotuns will simply allow you to place Loki on their throne? The child they left to die?”

Odin considered this. “I hope that by the time Loki and Thor are grown, Jotunheim and Asgard will be closer to peace.”

“They are Frost Giants,” Heimdall said. “Their language has no word for peace.”

“That is not so.”

“They also have no words for anything of a light or soft nature,” Heimdall said.

“These are lies,” Odin said.

“I have heard they often consume each other whilst mating.”

“I cannot do this with you right now,” Odin had said before stomping off.

# *

Frigga, sweet and loyal Frigga. She would understand, unlike Heimdall. She would see the logic of his plan and support him like a good wife.

“It's the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” she told him as they lay together. She had crossed her arms over her chest and wore an irritated frown. 

Odin considered that if he could go back to the beginning of things, he would simply do what he wanted rather than consulting with everyone. And if anyone disagreed, he could just shout them down like his father used to do.

“We cannot simply tell the Jotun that we raised their prince and he has right to the throne. And do you mean to send Loki back there, to that wretched cold world where there is no light, no warmth? Our precious child?” 

Our precious and mischievous little monkey, Odin thought, recalling the latest prank Loki had pulled involving a helmet with horns on the inside. So much mischief for such a small child.

“No,” Frigga said with that sad quiet voice, the one that promised even more uncomfortable conversation. “We have to tell them now, that we have a Jotun child and we are raising him as our own. That we see no difference between our kind and theirs. That is where true peace lies.”

Odin glared. “I do not agree. If we were the same, they would not be fighting us.”

“Are you not fighting them?” Frigga asked him sternly.

“That is different.”

“It is not.”

“Very different,” Odin said.

“Not at all. It takes two sides to make war, precious husband.” 

Odin glared. She always meant the opposite when she called him that. “Fine, we will tell them. What happens when they try to take your Loki from you?”

Frigga's eyes immediately began to glisten and Odin felt terrible. She gave him a hard look and said, “They cannot have that which they threw away. All they can have is the knowledge, that _we_ are better than the monsters who would throw away a child.”

Odin smiled. Now she was talking his language. But then his smiled vanished. If the Jotuns were told of Loki, who else would have to know? 

“Loki,” he whispered, his heart breaking a little. “No. We cannot tell Loki.”

For a moment it looked as though Frigga would agree and they would never have to have this terrible conversation again and Loki would never have to know his true origin. But then Frigga shook her head, as if her mind had changed at the tripping of the mildest breeze, damn the fates.

“He should know. It is better he know now than have his heart broken later.”

# *

Odin had a plan.

Heimdall didn't want to know the details because up until now Odin's plans didn't seem to go very well. The plan was to tell the Jotuns, to tell the Aesir and to tell Loki. And then, to give Loki as many gifts as it would take to make him not hate his Aesir parents. 

“Look,” Heimdall said. “I am not enamoured of that imp you call your son, but he's a child. You will break the boy's heart.”

“Frigga is of the mind that his heart should be broken now than later. A child's heart is easier to mend perhaps.”

“And if the Jotuns want the boy returned?” Heimdall said.

Odin stiffened and recalled Frigga's words. “They cannot have that which they threw away. Loki is my son. I will not have my son taken from me – are you crying?”

“I have something in my eye,” Heimdall said gruffly.

# *

The plan was a failure. The Jotuns accused Odin of abduction. The Aesir accused Odin of collusion. And Loki cried. Cried and hid lest the monsters should come for him and the Aesir should send him away.

No one could find him, which meant Odin had to go to Heimdall who now had the opportunity to say, “Did I not tell you this would not end well?”

Odin growled like his father used to and Heimdall rolled his eyes and told him of Loki's whereabouts.

“He has been in the Bifröst dome all this time?” Odin asked, simmering, close to boiling. “You did not think it wise to tell me?”

“You have not been responding to wisdom very well of late,” Heimdall answered flatly.

Odin made a noise and walked past Heimdall, “There is no talking to you sometimes.”

Heimdall harrumphed and turned the opposite way, muttering, “I also know you of old.”

Odin didn't see Loki at first. He was just inside the entrance, curled up to the right. From where he stood, Loki seemed almost as small as the day Odin had found him. Odin released a heavy sigh and took up a place on the floor next to Loki. Brought to the ground by a Jotun, his father would have scoffed if he were here. Good thing he wasn't.

Odin considered all the things he could say, but having grown up under the tutelage of his own father, he knew there was a strong chance of something exceptionally stupid coming out of his mouth. He did the only thing he recalled had given him comfort as a child, those times his father had thought it best to keep his wisdom to himself. Odin lay his hand on his child's head, gentle and light. 

Loki let out a broken sob. “I'm not a monster.”

Damn the boy, tears burned hot in Odin's eye and they had come quicker than a breath or a thought. He swallowed, trying to keep his voice steady. “I know.”

Loki turned about, face flushed and wet with misery. Odin moved his hand from Loki's head to his face, thumbing away tears as Loki said, “Father, please don't send me away.”

“No one will send you away,” someone growled, someone who was not Odin.

Odin frowned and turned his head to find Heimdall, tears in his eyes. He swallowed, gave Odin an awkward look and marched back out. Odin turned back to look at Loki, leaning forward until they were eye to eye.

“You are my son, Loki.” He thought of more to say, to tell him he would protect him, love him, keep him from harm. But all he could say was, “You are _my_ son.”

When Loki fell forward and hid in Odin's embrace, words didn't seem to matter.

# *

It took a while, but as the details of Loki's inclusion into Odin's family became clear, things began to settle on Asgard. Odin wasn't proud of it, but he might have slightly encouraged the monsters-abandon-baby-for-looking-a-little-Aesir angle. Loki was the child who had been abandoned by his own for not fitting a mould, one that just happened to be a giant block of ice. It brought sympathisers out in droves.

There were also the protesters, warning Odin that this little Loki would one day grow up to usurp the throne of Asgard, turning on his so-called family and giving the Jotuns the victory they so desperately hungered after. Frigga, did not take kindly to such talk and was vocal on the matter, in regards to what she would do to certain parts of certain people if they said another word against her son. 

The Jotuns? They tried to imply the child had been stolen, but faced by the rage of Odin All-Father, they became quiet on the matter only to re-emerge and state that they would not remain silent forever, not when one of their own was growing on Asgard. Laufey would come for his son, that much was certain.

Loki hid, but not in the Bifröst dome this time. This time he hid in the safety of his brother's bedchamber where they built a fort of bedlinen and feasted on apples while Thor spoke of defeating monsters and smashing Jotunheim into stardust.

“Don't worry,” he whispered inside their fort. “I will not let them take you, Brother.”

Loki considered Thor's promise unlike anything he had ever given a moment's thought. Thor was All-Father's son, his real son, everyone said so. He would be king and he was the only one who mattered. The one Loki would need. Imploring Thor with his eyes, he said, “Do you promise?”

Thor nodded vigorously, scowling as he did so, taking the oath most seriously. “I promise.”

Loki breathed easier than he had in days. He picked up an apple, polishing it until it shone even in the dark of their secret den. He handed it to Thor with a smile. Thor looked at it, looked at Loki and grinned.

# *

Odin had a plan. It was simple. Return Loki to his people.

“ _No_ ,” Frigga had said. “Absolutely not.”

“You must trust me,” Odin told her. “I know Laufey.”

Frigga cried, shaking her head, distraught at the idea of Loki with those creatures. In the end, she turned from Odin and nodded, promising only to leave her chambers again when he would bring her Loki back.

It was with guilt and fear he then took Loki to meet the Jotuns.

# *

Odin slammed his fist on the table and stood, all teeth and rage. The talks with the Jotuns had gone on for hours until everyone had been sent away, leaving only Odin and Laufey.

“I found a Jotun child and I took him into my arms and called him my son. I did not call him Jotun, prisoner, child of my enemy. Would you have done the same had you found an Aesir child?”

Laufey's head tilted at Odin, red eyes blinking thoughtfully. Coldly honest as ever, Laufey replied, “Never.”

Odin nodded. “I have taken from you, yes? Let us forget that what I have taken was discarded by you, let us just say I have taken. So, I will give you something of mine. We will be equal then. Yes?”

Laufey's face twisted with contempt. “We will see.”

Odin nodded to one of the guards, stepping away from the table. Moments later, the doors of the meeting hall opened and a child entered, flanked by two large guards. He looked up at Odin with his trusting eyes, face pale with fear and uncertainty. Odin held out his hand and Loki took it, never saying a word. Odin looked at the still seated Laufey.

“I took your son. You take mine,” Odin said. 

Laufey was eyeing the petrified boy who appeared dumbstruck by the Frost Giant. “And what am I to do with this boy? It does not appear he will make even an Asgard warrior, let alone be of use to me. You know what I want, All-Father.”

“The casket?” Odin asked. He shook his head. “No.”

“Then there is no peace,” Laufey said, standing up and towering over both father and son. “Your pitiful gift is rejected.”

“Are you quite sure? I will not offer to make amends again, Laufey,” Odin said. 

Laufey snorted and told Loki, “It appears your father is eager to cast you off, Prince.”

“What now?” Odin asked, stepping in front of Loki, shielding him from the Jotun. 

“Keep your boy,” Laufey said. “Give me what you owe me.”

“And what, is that?” Odin asked gruffly. 

“The casket. Or my offspring,” Laufey said menacingly. 

Odin nodded, clapping his hands twice. The doors opened and the guards ushered in a group of children. “Very well. Your child is in this room. If you can pick him out, you can take him with you. If you cannot, then you leave here, glad to be in one piece.”

Laufey growled. “You mock me.”

Odin growled back. “You are the one who has made a mockery! I brought you here to make peace. To let the boy who is child to both of us be the one to unite us. But you want only to make more war, to make chaos. You want the boy only because I call him son.”

Laufey's red eyes narrowed at Odin before turning on the children who had been lined up, Asgard soldiers standing guard next to them. “Trickery. You would not bring the child here.”

“By my word, he is in this very room,” Odin said. “The child you threw away.”

Laufey looked at the children. Odin watched red eyes going from face to face, height to height. Odin watched children shiver and shake as Laufey passed them by, whilst considering that people were not going to like him very much for at least some time, bringing this creature into Asgard to haunt their children's dreams.

Laufey stopped by a boy who was scowling at the Frost Giant. The boy was strong for his age, his eyes were an ice blue and his usually unkempt hair had been tied back to reveal sharp features. The boy shared a look with Odin and returned to angrily scowl at the Jotun.

Laufey noted the look which passed between Thor and Odin and smiled, straightening up and pointing at the stupidly fearless boy. “This one.”

Odin said, with some amount of pride, “He is Thor. Son of Odin and Frigga.”

Laufey's icy features morphed into a scowl of confusion. He began to question Odin, but then his eyes lowered to the boy who was peeking out from behind Odin. 

Odin reached back to put an arm around Loki's shoulders. “This is my son Loki. The one you have already refused to take and to whom you can now make no further claim.”

Laufey turned with such swiftness the move seemed to leech the warmth from the room. “You tricked me.”

“I gave you choices, you refused them all,” Odin said. “And what Jotun king would accept the gift he has already rejected? Surely, not Laufey.”

“This is how you make peace?” Laufey snarled.

“No,” Odin said. “This is how _you_ wish to make war.”

Laufey approached Odin, looking down at him with visible disdain. “Making a Jotun into one of your own is no great feat. I will wait for the day you put him on the throne of Asgard. Until then, he is no more than a prisoner here.”

“The throne of Asgard will go to my son. Which one, I cannot say yet, but it will be one of the two princes of this realm. Thor. Or Loki.”

Laufey laughed slowly. “Will your people accept him as one of their own? Will an Aesir take his hand one day, to make him their mate? Would they lie with a Jotun? Tell me, who would take this boy into their family a second time? One day, he will return to me of his own accord. To make war against Odin himself.”

“No.” Odin looked down at Loki who had moved to his side, hands clutching at his father's tunic. “I won't go with you. ”

Laufey stared at the boy, icy features strangely relaxed, something strange and troubling at the corners of his mouth. Thor broke Odin free of his musing then by walking purposely to his father and brother. He stood next to Loki and straightened up as if already a man before grabbing Loki's wrist.

“And I, Thor Odinson, would take Loki as my mate.” He turned to Loki to grin and shrug. “Then we can be both be kings.” 

Odin frowned at Thor, noting that Loki was not shaking him off and both were not wrestling on the ground to gouge each others eyes out as they usually did when one lay a hand on the other. It was a relief. Odin could either watch over the realms or spend his time sending his sons to opposite corners of a room. He turned to face Laufey, finding the Jotun to be rather pleased. 

Laufey bent down so he was close to Thor and said, “Will you now?”

Thor nodded, defiantly answering, “I promised. I will not let you take him.”

Laufey was grinning and then quietly laughing. He turned to Odin and said, “So, it is peace you seek, is it?”

“It is all I have ever wanted from you,” Odin replied.

“And you want to prove that you see no difference between Jotun and Aesir. That we are of equal import on the tree of life.”

Odin gave a stiff nod. That was more Frigga's crusade to be honest. The Jotun weren't exactly the easiest neighbours on the tree. But still. “I do.”

Laufey was looking at Thor who was still holding Loki's wrist. He grinned. “Very well, All-Father. Let us talk of an Aesir and Jotun alliance. A _true_ alliance, like the old days, the old ways.”

Odin narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Very well.”

# *

“The queen has refused you entry into your chambers.”

“She has.”

“Because you have promised that neither Loki nor Thor will ascend the thrown until one has been given to the other as a consort.”

“It is the promise on which the truce has been made.”

“And you are drinking my mead because...”

“A king has no idea of where mead comes from,” Odin said, downing the contents of his tankard. “One simply calls for mead and mead arrives.”

Heimdall frowned. “And you are staying in my home because...”

“This is where the mead is. And in the name of Valhalla, are you not my friend?”

“Of course,” Heimdall said, slurring a little. “But, your queen, she is a formidable woman.”

Odin smiled and nodded. “Striking too.”

“Oh yes,” Heimdall agreed. “Very striking.”

Odin pointed his finger at Heimdall and scowled. “You keep your eyes off my queen, you hear?”

Heimdall laughed, deep and heartily. “Odin All-Father still feels pangs of jealousy?”

Odin sat back with a smile of satisfaction, thumping his chest like an Asgard warrior telling a battle tale. “My friend, these are pangs of love.”

Someone sighed and Odin looked around from the couch where he was sat. Frigga stood in the arched entrance to the room, wearing a hooded cloak and look of reproach. 

“Pangs of love, indeed,” she scoffed, walking up to the couch. Odin smiled up at her and held out a hand. She shook her head and took his hand, sitting down beside him.

“Have you forgiven me?” Odin asked. 

“You've sacrificed the choices of our children for an alliance,” she said with a frown. “How do I begin to forgive you for laying such a burden on innocents? They were to be brothers, not betrothed. You have taken Asgard back into old ancient ways that are better long forgotten.”

Odin held a hand to his chest. “They are not brothers, or betrothed. They are the princes of realms. Let them be the ones to usher in peace. Let them be the ones who will never have to fight a war. Be away from their beloved. Lose an eye. They are roots of the same tree, my love, if they twine together, then our foundations grow only stronger. Laufey wants this to see us fail, but our sons will prove him wrong.”

Frigga sighed and turned to Heimdall. “I will need a tankard. I fear our king is about to start reciting poetry.”

# *

And so it came to be that a ceremony was held where the princes Loki and Thor were betrothed to each other in the presence of the Aesir and Jotun elders and a truce was agreed upon. Odin had looked hopeful, even if Frigga had looked sad. The Jotuns looked somewhere between smug and less disgruntled than usual.

It was Heimdall who had noticed a strange look of longing in Laufey's red eyes, in the direction of Loki who never left Thor's side for even a moment. Laufey appeared thoughtful and then something like a sad smile tugged at those cold hard features. Heimdall chose not to think of it any longer and closed his eyes, listening to the hum of a blooming universe.


	2. Chapter 2

“All-Father recited poetry to woo the queen? No. I simply don't believe it!” Fandral said, _simply_ not believing Thor. Loki pretended to eradicate non-existent dirt from under one of his pristine fingernails as he lay against the cushions in the corner of the large couch. “A romantic, who would have thought it?”

Volstagg threw aside a bone stripped clean of meat and said, “I liked a bit of poetry myself, you know, as a young lad.”

“When was that? When the universe was just a glint in the cosmos's eye?” Fandral asked. Thor and Sif burst into peals of laughter while Hogun shook his head. 

Volstagg glared at Fandral as Thor leaned over to sling an arm around Volstagg's shoulders. “Fandral is simply jealous. Waiting for the rest of his beard to take.”

This time Volstagg and Sif laughed while Fandral glared and Hogun started to sharpen his sword, hopefully to cut out someone's tongue or cut off Loki's ears, Loki thought. Having had his fill of what passed for entertainment, he got up to leave.

“Silvertongue,” Fandral playfully called after him. “What's this? Leaving without a word?”

Loki turned and smiled at Fandral. “You seem to be doing so well grunting your thoughts, I thought it best not to ruin the tone of the conversation.”

“Loki,” Thor admonished without any heat, amusement sitting on one corner of his mouth. 

“If you'll excuse me, I have other matters to which I must attend,” Loki said, giving them all a slight nod before parting.

“Yes, there she goes, Queen Bitch,” Fandral said louder than necessary for Loki's benefit, his voicing carrying out into the corridor and stopping Loki in his tracks. “Good luck in the marital bed, Thor. Do tell me what it's like dangling your testicles into a wasp's nest.”

Loki twisted around on the spot where he stood, a grin breaking out on his face as he held up his hand and opened his palm in the direction of the room he had just left. A second later, Fandral yelled and there was the sound of plates and tankards clanging and banging onto the floor. Above it all he could hear Thor laughing. Loki spread his hand out in front and saw a still image of himself flicker into existence. 

Moments later, Fandral rushed out and straight at it, running right through and hitting the wall hard. He fell back, landing on the floor with a groan and remaining there in a daze. Loki summoned his image back to himself as Thor popped his head out of the room, tilting it at Fandral and then turning it towards Loki.

Smirking, Thor said, “You should probably leave before he wakes up.”

# *

Loki went for a long walk, passing by and through the preparations for the confirmation. Everything looked even more golden than usual in the palaces of the mighty. He stood on a balcony overlooking the grand hall where everyone would assemble to watch Thor and Loki being named consorts before Thor would be pronounced king. 

You were both born to be kings, his father had once told him and Thor. Both protectors of peace which rested on the betrothal of two princes. First they cast me away, he thought, and then proclaimed me Jotun to test Odin's word. He would see them erased from existence if it were in his hands. His eyes stung at the suddenness of such a monstrous thought, that swift quickening of darkness in his mind. Not a monster, he reminded himself, not like them in the least.

“Loki,” Frigga said, sounding at once pleased and surprised as she approached from behind. She stopped at his side, laying her hand gently on his back. 

Loki didn't look at her, still troubled by dark thoughts. “I can't believe it's happening so soon.”

“Your father grows old,” Frigga said quietly. “He fears he may not see Thor ascend to the throne, see you lead from by his side.”

“Come on now, Mother, we both know queens don't lead from the side,” Loki said, finally turning to her with a smile in place, before turning his hand in towards his chest, transforming into regal robes and the shape of an elegant woman holding a short golden sceptre. “They prod from behind.”

Frigga slapped his arm. “ _Loki_.”

A snap of fingers and Loki was as he had been, laughing at her from his usual form. They both turned to look down from the balcony, watching in silence, Loki's laughter fading until he was smiling.

“Loki,” Frigga said tentatively after a while. “Laufey is coming. He and his closest.”

Loki's hands gripped the balcony rail slowly as he schooled his expression. Why hadn't he thought of this? Of course Laufey would be there. Of course he would want to witness this. How had Loki let this slip his mind?

Frigga reached out to touch his arm. “Will you be –?”

“It'll be a glorious day, Mother,” Loki said, cutting her off and turning to her with a bright smile. He took her by the shoulders and said, “Thor will be resplendent. I'll look better, of course, but that can't be helped.”

Frigga smiled, but her smile was as false as his. When she pulled him close, Loki held her tight, thinking about Laufey and his so-called _closest_. The ones he had bothered to keep.

# *

Loki slowly pulled off his coat and set it aside on the back of the couch. It was quiet and peaceful in his chambers, away from the rush of preparations for the coronation. The view across the room, on other side of the balcony, was pink and blue, mixed in with bright and dark. Blinking at the evening sky, Loki wondered what they saw when looking from Jotunheim. Did they send curses up to Asgard, the way some Aesir spat upon the ground when speaking of Jotunheim? Loki walked on into his bedchamber, opening up the doors to the balcony there just as he heard Thor's familiar heavy footfalls in the other room.

“Loki,” Thor called out, never a question, always a demand.

“I'm in here,” Loki replied, slowly and somewhat wearily unclasping the fastenings of his tunic. 

Thor strode in the way he strode everywhere, the son of the father who had right to everything and everyone. Giving Loki a strange half-smile and half-frown he sauntered over to the other side of the bed and landed on it with a hard thump, sitting on Loki's pillow, one leg stretched out in front, the other curled under. 

“My friends are under the impression you have something against them,” Thor said.

Loki frowned. “That's terrible. I was hoping it would be more than just an impression by now. I've done everything short of poisoning them after all.”

“Oh, you think that's funny?” Thor asked. Loki broke out into a pleased smile. Thor narrowed his eyes at him and said, “Loki. It's not funny.”

“It's so funny I may just soil myself with mirth,” Loki said, pulling off his tunic and throwing it onto the bed before turning to look in the mirror, finding his usually perfect hair now a mess. He lifted his hands to smooth it back.

“Leave it,” Thor said. Loki frowned at the image of Thor in his mirror. Thor smiled, eyes twinkling with mischief. “You look too perfect.”

Loki rolled his eyes at Thor, turning towards his bed, placing one knee on it and gracefully falling, turning half-way to land on his back. “Queen Bitch? Fandral really is scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

Thor tilted his head at Loki, looking down at him with his pale gaze and bright grin. “You put a snake in his drink.”

“I heard he likes that sort of thing. Besides, he's one of the Warriors Three, isn't he? Or maybe he thinks he is. I always thought you meant Sif,” Loki said reaching up and pulling on the string fastening of Thor's shirt. Thor leaned down for a kiss, but Loki moved his head out of the way and smirked. “Please. I have no idea whose lap you've been lying in.”

Thor's eyes narrowed and he slowly moved to straddle Loki, wrapping his hands around Loki's wrists, pulling on them so Loki's arms were stretched out and tight, eliciting a surprised gasp from him. He gave a Thor a grin, quite breathlessly telling him, “Then again, I'm not really inclined to argue against the point you're making.”

# *

“Why are you still awake?” Thor sighed loud and heavy. Loki frowned, but remained quiet. Another sigh. “I can tell.”

Loki's frowned deepened. “How?”

“How many times have we shared the same bed?” Thor asked, still lying on his back, probably glaring at the ceiling. “What is it? What keeps you awake at this hour?”

Loki remained lying on his stomach, one side of his face pressed against the pillow. He blinked at the dark shapes of the night with one eye. “Laufey's coming.”

Thor was quiet long enough for Loki to recognise it as guilt. “Father said not to say anything to you.”

“So it could be a nice surprise on the day?” Loki asked, with a bitter laugh.

“How did you find out?”

“Mother told me,” Loki replied. Thor let out an annoyed huff of air. Loki responded in kind. “She was right to tell me. You can't _protect_ me from everything. I'm not a child.”

“So you feel better now? Knowing Laufey will be there?” Thor asked, always so easily angered. 

Loki clenched his jaw shut, scowling with frustration, his hand fisting around a handful of pillow. Finally he said, “No. I can't say that I do.”

Uncomfortable silence followed and then Thor moved closer, half covering Loki. He leaned over Loki, ducking his head down, rubbing his bearded chin against Loki's cheek. “What do you think he can do to you? You are to become prince consort. If he even looks in your direction--”

“You'll smash him to dust? Destroy the very peace our father has been teaching us to protect? Yes. Good plan, Thor,” Loki said, too sharply perhaps.

Thor grabbed Loki's shoulder, turning him roughly onto his back. The starlight caught every part of the terrain of Thor's angry expression. It slowly morphed to frustration as Loki blinked up at him in silence, patiently waiting for the outburst. None came.

“They think us and All-Father weak,” Thor said quietly. “They mistake this truce for cowardice.”

“They do. But I can't say I care for what any Jotun thinks.” Loki pulled his shoulder from Thor's grasp and turned onto his side with a sigh, closing his eyes. “Will you be sleeping here tonight?”

“Yes,” Thor whispered, still hovering over Loki. “Of course.”

“Don't snore.”

Thor snorted and fell back down, giving Loki's ankle a light kick. “I do not snore. _Cow_.” 

Loki kicked back and a struggle ensued which resulted in Thor not snoring and Loki not sleeping.

# *

The big day came. A day of mixed feelings for many. Happiness because Asgard's most cherished son would become king. Sad, for some, because a Frost Giant would have to become consort first, cementing Jotun power in Asgard politics. Suddenly, Loki was to go from being cherished foundling Prince, to Jotun meddling consort. If only they knew, he'd been meddling for _years_. 

Loki looked at his mirror to seek out what they all saw when they looked at him. Was his skin too pale? Did his hair not hold the lustre of Asgard? Did they see red in the ice of his eyes? Did they see the monster they feared? He stepped closer and asked his mirror twin, tell me, what do they see? Aesir or Jotun? Friend or foe? His reflection broke into a sharp grin, though Loki did not smile at all. 

Leaning towards Loki, his reflection told him, “Loki. Laufeyson.”

Loki picked up his helmet and lifted it high above his head, called damnation on so-called truths, brought it down on his head and turned away from the mirror. He strode with a smile towards the great hall, waiting for Thor's arrival, signalled by the smashing of a cup. Thor came to quite a sudden stop, as if his feet had taken root in the ground. Loki went to his side and innocently asked, “Nervous, Brother?”

Thor laughed, aiming an incredulous look at him. “Have you _ever_ known me to be nervous?”

“There was the time in Nornheim,” Loki began, quite happy to recite the whole débâcle.

“That wasn't nerves, Brother, that was the rage of battle,” Thor said, protesting a little too much. 

“I see.”

“How else could I have fought my way through a hundred warriors and pulled us out alive?” 

“Uh, as I recall, I was the one who veiled us in smoke to ease our escape.” The Warriors Three had been no help either. Though, at the time they had been more like the Warriors One and a Half.

Thor laughed. “Yes, some do battle and some just do tricks.”

Yes, it was why some received more blows to the head than others. Fresh wine arrived in the shape of an imbecile with a cup, tittering with Thor's warrior observation. Loki cast the imbecile in question a look, angling his hand at the cup and casting a slithering snake that frightened the cup bearer into dropping the drink on the ground. Loki broke into a grin and laughed. 

“Loki,” Thor complained. “Now that was just a waste of good wine.”

“Oh, just a bit of fun, right my friend?” Loki said most amiably to the cup bearer as he cast away the illusion of the snake. The cup bearer gave Loki a nervous laugh, though Thor seemed a little more in the spirit of the jest now. Loki chuckled, mischief spent for now. Until Thor's helmet arrived. “Oh. Nice feathers.”

Thor laughed, now looking as though he couldn't quite believe Loki had chosen today of all days to tease him. “You don't really want to start this again, do you? Cow?”

“I was being sincere,” Loki said, trying to hold back a smile.

“You are incapable of sincerity.”

“Am I?” Loki asked, pretending to be mildly scandalized by the accusation.

“ _Yes_.”

Loki looked Thor in the eyes and summoned the truest of truths he possessed. “I've looked forward to this day as long as you have. You're my brother and my friend. Sometimes, I'm envious, but never doubt that I love you.”

Thor's face, so much better at pride and arrogance, softened. He cupped the back of Loki's neck and smiled. “Thank you.”

“Now give us a kiss,” Loki said with a smile.

“Stop it.” Thor slapped the front of Loki's breastplate, pointing an admonishing finger at him. They both laughed and turned to face front, ready to go into the great hall where Thor would enter as prince and leave as king. Softly, Thor said, “Really. How do I look?”

“Like a king,” Loki said, seeing in Thor that same determination he had observed in their father, that he admired. He and Thor both faced forward. Feeling some of Thor's nerves, Loki took a deep breath. “It's time.”

“You go ahead,” Thor said. Loki looked at Thor, always so ready to be the lone warrior. No veils of smoke for him, not when he could just bleed. “I'll be along. Go on.”

Loki gave him a parting smile and walked on ahead. The hall was heaving with those who had come to witness the coronation. It was a sea of Aesir faces, which made it that much easier to spot the Jotuns. Loki spotted Laufey immediately, given a spot usually held for dignitaries of the highest order. With him were five others. One of them saw Loki and turned his head slightly in Laufey's direction, his mouth opening to speak.

A moment later Laufey's attention turned to Loki. Their gazes met for a moment, during which Laufey gave Loki a slight nod of acknowledgement. Loki nodded back, regal and respectful, as Odin would have him behave before he turned towards Odin who sat on the throne, almost like a statue. His one eye moved though, flicking down to look at Loki. Perhaps Odin meant nothing by it, but Loki heard it anyway.

You are _my_ son.

The next time he looked at Laufey, it didn't matter. Laufey was just a Jotun. An inconvenience to be endured for the day and no more. So Loki smiled openly when Thor arrived, with his usual humility, hammer held aloft and cheering with the crowd. He stood before Odin and turned to Loki, his hand held out, palm down. Loki went to Thor's side and placed his hand on top of Thor's.

A smashing sound made the crowd turn to see two Jotuns separating from Laufey, their limbs extending into shards of ice which were let loose like knives. The civilians panicked, running and shielding each other. The guards ran at the Jotuns and Thor was already running to strike before Loki had even processed what was happening. Loki took a step to follow.

“Loki!” Odin commanded. Loki stopped dead and looked up to see Odin shake his head.

“Father, I have to-”

Odin gave him a hard look, one not to be argued with. “Have the guards take Laufey and the others into custody.”

Loki looked from Odin to the scene behind him, two Frost Giants on the rampage and the remaining Frost Giants threatening the guards who had fenced them in. Amidst all this, Laufey had the gall to look Loki in the eyes as if he were not to blame. Loki gladly called for the guards to have the Jotuns taken away.

# *

Loki had never seen Thor argue with their father like this before. He was murderous with rage, insisting that Laufey not be allowed to return, to answer for the actions of the two responsible for so much damage. He did not believe for a moment that they had acted of their own accord and that Laufey had no knowledge of what they had planned. Thor had told Odin exactly how he thought the Jotuns should be dealt with, exactly what he would do as king. 

Odin boomed, “But you're not king! Not yet.”

Father and son were locked in a silent battle of wills before Thor spun about and left. Loki watched him go. He would follow close behind, let him vent his anger and soothe his hurt pride. A rift between Odin and Thor would be a boon for the Jotuns and Loki would not have the Jotuns victorious in anything. Not ever.

A running imbecile jostled Loki as he tripped past. Loki grit his teeth and reached out to catch the plump little man by the scruff of his neck, jerking him backwards and asking, “ _Afi_?”

Afi gave Loki a nervous look and said, “Forgive me, Prince Loki. I was told to be swift.”

Loki let go of the man and asked, “By whom?”

“The guards who keep watch over the Jotuns,” Afi replied. He looked incredibly shifty. 

Loki smiled at him, putting an arm around his shoulders. “Why such swiftness?”

Afi was shaking slightly. “I'm not supposed to say.”

Loki's smile turned to a grin and Afi gulped. “I'm sure you'd rather I extracted the information painlessly, Afi. If you wish to see your children.”

Afi frowned. “I don't have any children.”

Loki's eyes flicked down and up, quick and discrete. “My point exactly.”

Afi's eyes widened as Loki's threat penetrated his skull. Very quickly he said, “The Jotun king insists on talking to you and I was told to inform All-Father.”

Loki frowned, stepping away from Afi. To Loki's knowledge, prisoners seldom had the luxury of insisting on anything. Loki nodded and said, “Be on your way then. Oh, and while you're being swift, make sure to take the long path.”

Afi stepped back looking at the corridor where he had been headed and then wisely turning left and swiftly moving along. Thor would have to wait for now, because apparently there was a rather insistent Jotun just waiting to talk to Loki.

# *

Loki slipped into the room with ease. Fooling a couple of guards was child's play and he would think about his father's reaction later. Loki was curious what this so-called Jotun king could possibly want to say to an Aesir prince.

“I hear you're insisting on seeing me,” Loki said, stepping into the large room, which looked small with Laufey's presence. It was a comfortable room, its purpose lost on this cold hard creature as he chose to stand by the window, almost at the same height. 

Laufey silently looked at Loki. What was he seeing? What abomination was he seeing? What disappointment? He took a step away from the window. Loki resolutely stood his ground, next to the table which held a tray, cup and pitcher of water, all within easy reach. Laufey slowly walked towards Loki, closing the gap between them very quickly. Loki looked up at Laufey, holding his ground, hands clasped behind his back. 

“I have asked to see you many times,” Laufey said. 

“To what end?” Loki asked with a smile of amusement.

“I would speak with you.”

“Oh, really? About what exactly? Summer on Jotunheim?” Laufey's head tilted to the side as if he could see a whole different Loki from the new point of view. It made Loki's smile turn tight, his face taut. 

“Such hatred for your own kind,” Laufey said quietly. 

Loki's face went from taut to lax with surprise. His mouth opened, but no words came out. His laugh came out as half an airless breath. “My own kind?” 

“You may have Aesir magic that runs through your veins, but cut them open and you'll see it is Jotun blood that gives you life,” Laufey said.

“This is what you wanted to talk about, was it? Our shared blood. This blood of which you are so proud? I would _burn_ it out of me if I could,” Loki said quietly, with a smile on his face. Laufey was so still he could have been a piece of carved rock. “You were invited here to witness an important occasion and instead you brought with you those who would threaten the truce between our people. Was it your intention to incite the next king into making war?” 

“I am more interested in what his consort would have him do,” Laufey said. His tone didn't seem to suggest he was making a joke. “If the people of Asgard still allow it.”

Loki started to laugh, shaking his head. 

Laufey took a step towards Loki and said, “I hope you will one day convince him to return the casket. One day when you realise that we are your people and what the casket means to the Jotuns.”

“Clearly you've lost your mind,” Loki said.

“Why? Because Odin has made you believe you are an Aesir? That you are a poor abandoned foundling saved by the almighty Odin? Convinced you that the Jotuns are monsters?” 

Loki pretended to think over the question. “Monsters? Try villains of the _highest_ order who have come here to sabotage not only Thor's coronation but to remind the people of Asgard that I am a Jotun monstrosity taking up the prized place of prince consort.”

“We are not monsters!” Laufey snarled at him. “I would not leave my own flesh and blood to perish, you foolish _boy_. We were at war. My people were being slaughtered. I sent my child away to be safe. I mourned his death only to find he was being raised by the very people I thought were his murderers.”

Loki took a step back, disgust contorting his face, breaking the mask of nonchalance. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Jotunheim is full of the graves of young who perished. I did not want you to be one of them.” Laufey's hand came up, fingers outstretched as if they might touch Loki's face, but then curled away. “I searched for you.”

“You're lying. You'll say anything to have me guide the future king's hand. Or perhaps you want them to cast me out. You think I'll come to you with Odin's secrets. _One day, he will return to me of his own accord. To make war against Odin himself_. That's what you said. Remember? When you came here and couldn't recognise your own son?”

Laufey was frowning at Loki, his red eyes like pinpricks of lava on a harsh mountainside. “When I saw you that first time, clinging to Odin, I knew you were already lost to me. All I could do was wait for the day I could tell you myself that you were not cast aside. You were lost to me before I could even have begun to know you.”

Loki grit his teeth, taking a deep breath that whistled in his nose. Barely reeling in his anger, he asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“I wanted war with Asgard once, for stealing the casket, for murdering my son,” Laufey said. “But here you stand, future consort, prince of the realm. A prince of Jotunheim. My true ally. Do not let the actions of two rogue Jotuns give reason to Thor and Odin for war.”

Loki laughed. “Oh. There it is. You mean to _use_ me.”

“I mean to appeal to that part of you which is Jotun. Which belongs to me,” Laufey said. “I appeal to my son.”

“I am not your son!” Loki all but screamed, his body curling forward as if he might strike Laufey the way a snake coiled and sprang at its attacker. Taking a shuddering breath, Loki said, “I'm not your _anything_.”

Loki turned to leave, done with Laufey. His hand cooled and his body jerked back around to see Laufey who was holding him by his wrist. Loki looked down at his hand, watched the pale recede from his fingers, revealing blue. He watched with silent wonder, feeling a strange soothing balm that cooled his nerves, telling him his skin was turning blue all the way up his arm. When he looked up to stare at Laufey, the Jotun was already gazing down at him, a slight frown crumpling his features. Loki looked to the side, catching his reflection on the silver water pitcher on the table. He stared, his horror reflected right back at him.

“Let him go.”

It was Odin's voice, so low, yet so commanding that Laufey immediately released Loki. He felt a tremor go through him, leaving him feeling warm and giddy. He backed away from Laufey, feeling strangely empty and adrift. Loki frowned, his eyes drifting somewhere far ahead of him. Overwhelmed, he turned his back on Laufey and started to leave, only to have Odin step in his path, his one-eyed gaze silently telling him to stay. He stayed, like a machine under enchantment.

“Your people have not eased the relations between Asgard and Jotunheim today,” Odin said. “I am certain that had it been my people on Jotunheim, you would call this an act of war.”

“You cannot be certain,” Laufey said.

“But I am,” Odin said, his tone laced with amusement. “There is no need for war. No need to dig more graves for the young. The truce remains. You may return to Jotunheim. I expect that you will punish the rebels accordingly for their behaviour.”

“Father-” Loki protested, shut down by Odin holding up a hand to silence him. Loki stepped back, straightening up at the dismissal and casting a look at Laufey.

“The truce holds,” Odin said to Laufey. “And the casket remains on Asgard. As for Loki... he may have Jotun blood in his veins, but he is _my_ son, Loki of Asgard. Never forget this.”

Laufey's eyes narrowed slightly, one corner of his mouth sliding upwards. He gave Odin the slightest of nods. 

“Guards!” Odin called. Loki stood impassively as the guards came in and Odin ordered, “Take King Laufey and his people to the Bifröst. Be sure to watch the Jotun prisoners.”

The guards waited by the doors as Laufey slowly made his way across the room. He gave Odin an acknowledging nod and started to walk on, stopping by the door. Laufey didn't turn the complete way around, but angled his head slightly and said, “Prince Loki, believe what you will, but know you were wanted before you were lost to Jotunheim.”

The guards took him away leaving Loki with Odin. Loki stood, rigid, his body feeling as though it would start shaking and never stop. He miserably stared at the floor, scowling until his eyes hurt in his head. Finally, he whispered, “They should never have come here.”

Odin's hand came up to reach for Loki, but before he could touch, Loki jerked backwards, out of reach, feeling his face twist in anguish. His father urged him not to shrink away, saying only, “Loki.”

Loki's fingers became like claws at his side, hands wanting to turn into fists, but not quite managing it as he said, “Why couldn't you just keep it to yourself? Why did anyone ever have to know? Why did _I_ have to know?”

Odin looked at him, face crumpled and tired. “We thought it best you knew the truth.”

“Why? I,” Loki stumbled, his throat barely working. “I... I could have just not known. I could have just been your son.”

“You _are_ my son,” Odin said, grit in his voice. “I only wanted to protect you-”

“Did you really find me? Or am I just another stolen relic locked up here so you might have use of me?” Loki said, tears unashamedly rolling down his face as he pointed to the doors through which Laufey had left. “You wanted to use me for this truce. You wanted a Jotun prince you could parade as some kind of symbol of your benevolence –”

“No... no.” 

Odin's brow knit together and he seemed to stagger, shaking is head, uttering only Loki's name, reaching for him as he fell to the ground, stopping Loki from furthering his tirade. His eye slowly closed as he lay there. Loki slowly lowered himself to the ground, reaching for Odin's hand. His skin was warm to the touch. He seemed to still breath. A terrible fear spiked through Loki. It felt like a cold dark shadow moving over him with the whispers of dark dreams. 

“Guards! Guards, please, help!” Loki called out, sitting aside so he could not cause his father anymore harm than he already had.

# *

“He didn't want to tell you,” Frigga said quietly, squeezing Odin's hand as he slept in the healing bed. “He didn't want to break your heart then and I didn't want it to break now.”

Loki quietly watched Odin. His anger and frustration had faded to something numbing, something that left him tired. Quietly, he asked, “What if he doesn't wake?” 

Frigga looked down at Odin. “He will. I know he will. It's just... it's different this time.”

Yes, thought Loki, this time I put him here. All that time trying not to turn into a monster and he had done this to his father. He looked away, unable to see his father like this. It was just in time to see Thor stride in, holding Odin's spear, Gungnir. 

Thor stared at Odin, the spear forgotten in his hand. “So, it's true.”

Loki slowly stood and stared at the spear before looking at Frigga. “I don't understand.”

Frigga's eyes glistened as she smiled slightly and stood. Looking at Thor, she said, “The Odinsleep has taken your father. While he sleeps, Asgard still needs a king and that duty now falls to the first born.”

Loki swallowed, throat going dry as he saw the way Thor turned to look at Odin, expression twisted between anger and frustration. Thor nodded, hand tightening around the spear. He looked at Frigga and said, “Send for me as soon as he wakes. Loki.”

Thor marched out of the room without another look, Loki following him down the long corridor. “Thor, wait –“

“Where is Laufey?” Thor demanded. 

“Father let him and his people go.” 

Thor stopped in his tracks and turned to frown at Loki. “The prisoners?” 

Loki nodded. “They will be punished on Jotunheim.”

“You're a fool if you believe that,” Thor said, glaring at the spear in his hand, the turbulence of his thoughts clear on his face. “We go to Jotunheim then and we bring back our prisoners.”

“It's forbidden to go there, you know it is. They will not think before striking against you,” Loki said. “They fear only the king.”

Thor held up Gungnir. “Then they should fear me. I am the king now.”

“Only on Asgard,” Loki said, not intending to aid Thor in any of this madness. “According to the Jotun treaty, they will not recognise you as king until I am prince consort.”

Thor gave Loki a hard look. “Then we will go to Jotunheim, bring back our prisoners and I will confirm you as my consort in front of Odin and in front of Laufey. They mock us and our father when they come here and cause chaos on a day of celebration. Then they walk free, as if they can come and go as they please. I will put an end to it.”

Loki grabbed Thor's wrist before he could think of running off to commit madness. “This is not what Father wants. No matter how slighted you feel on his behalf.”

“And you are the guardian of his will?” Thor asked, anger barely contained under the surface.

“I am his _son_ ,” Loki said. 

“And I am his flesh and blood!” Thor roared. 

Loki froze. They stood locked in each other's gazes and while Loki could manage no more than shock, Thor's expression went from rage to remorse in seconds. Loki stepped away, blinking stupidly at Thor as he released his grip on Thor's wrist.

“Come with me,” Thor said quietly. “I need you with me. Brother.”

“Why? To prove I can match up to Odin's flesh and blood?” Loki slowly shook his head, feeling an ugly tear bloom across his eye. Thor stared at Loki, a bright sheen appearing across his eyes. Loki whispered, “Don't go to Jotunheim.”

Thor was quiet for an eternity. Then he nodded, jaw clenched. He looked at Gungnir and then gave Loki a resolute look. “Be ready when I return. We become consorts today and then we go to Jotunheim. Together.”

Loki protested, “I won't –”

“That was _not_ a request, Loki,” Thor cut him off. “Be in the healing chamber by nightfall.”

Loki watched Thor stomp away, imagining that Gungnir quivered in his angry hold. There he went, vengeance on his mind, more destruction, more graves. But you would see Jotunheim wiped from existence, he heard his own voice whisper in his ear. Then you are as monstrous as any Jotun, another whisper countered. You know your father's will, you should be king. Did you ever want the throne? Which throne? The Aesir throne? The Jotun throne? Which is your throne, Loki?

Loki squeezed his eyes shut, shrinking from all the voices, having had enough of the fates playing with him. When he opened his eyes again, he had a plan. It involved neither Jotunheim, nor Asgard.

# *

Midgard.

Seldom visited, but still cherished by Odin. Loki had seen glimpses of the world, though not stepped on its soil yet. He had turned mirrors into windows and looked at the humans, whispered a few suggestions here and there. So much chaos. They were still too busy slaughtering each other to have found the time to slaughter other worlds. They would get there eventually. 

Standing before his mirror and looking into Midgard once again, Loki wondered about his next step. Wait for Thor to drag him to their father's beside to confirm them as consorts? Wait for him to thunder down to Jotunheim and start a war? Wait for the dark whisperings of his mind which would tell him he could fix this all, if he had the power, he could put an end to all of it. He could do it, for his father, Odin. But then, nothing he could do would ever make him Odin's son, his flesh and blood.

The casket, his mind supplied. Touch it, and feel it. Feel the true power of Jotunheim. Feel your own true power. Take it. Take it, Loki, take it all. Loki tilted his head at his reflection, bringing his hand up to touch the cool surface. Were his eyes that hollow? When had his skin become so pale? 

He frowned at himself, muttering. “Sometimes, I think you're not my reflection at all.”

Though he knew it to be some madness that extended from his father's Aesir magic and his Jotun heritage, he almost jerked away at the imagined way his own reflection turned his head to look at him with a spreading smile of malice and whispered, “Go to Jotunheim. Let Odin see who should really be king. Don't let the fates unbind you from your great destiny.”

Loki stepped back, as if the mirror itself had pushed him. He looked at his hand, the one Laufey had grasped and poisoned. Scowling at it, he fisted his hand and then levelled a glare at the mirror. He flung his arm towards the mirror, opening his fist and stretching out his fingers, veiling himself from Heimdall's all-seeing eyes and calling upon the mirror for doorways to Midgard, all those hidden planes of reflection where dark matter could fold back the fabric of time and space.

# *

A quick glance at the people and Loki shifted, his Asgard clothes glimmering into something more Midgardian. People were walking to and fro, mechanical modes of transport keeping them either side of an ever-extending path. He looked at the towers, tall with grinning windows, trying to touch the sky. Loki frowned, looking around him, all these people so pre-occupied with the smallness of their lives. So... unaware.

Easy pickings. Anyone could just come along and... _make them kneel_. Loki gave the large pane of black glass a sidelong glance, only finding his own quizzical expression. The Aesir had long departed this world and the likes of the Jotun would bring ruin. These people, they didn't even know what was out there, hanging above them on the cosmic tree. So ripe for the plucking. 

“Billy!” someone cried.

Loki saw a child who possessed no observation skills whatsoever, running straight into the path of a metal beast. Loki moved quick, grabbing the boy and brought him back to safety just as the mechanical leviathan sped past. 

The boy blinked up at him with large cow eyes and with a great deal of awe said, “Thanks, mister.”

“Oh my god! Thank you, thank you!” a woman yelled, pulling the boy into a suffocating maternal embrace. “You just saved my son's life.”

“Yes, I did. Well done on your dismal efforts at safeguarding your offspring's well-being.” The woman's mouth opened, flapped slightly. Nothing intelligent came out. Loki nodded and walked on. 

“Did you see what that guy did? He could have been killed. That was amazing.” 

Loki turned towards the voice of the amazed party to find a man looking around in confusion, while the woman next to him noticed Loki was looking right at them and smiled, giving him a coy wave. Loki arched a brow and mirrored the gesture. He walked on, past more awed faces. So easily impressed, he thought. All because he saved one little life.

He walked on as behind him a building thumped with music blaring from the inside, sounding like muffled thunder with voices trickling and tripping over each other. The breeze blew against his cheek as if the fates themselves guided him down the path.

# *

# 

“That's all there is to it,” Loki said, folding his paper napkin neatly and putting it next to his plate. “I came, I saw, I stayed.”

“Why?”

Loki shrugged. “Why not? I belong here as much as anyone else does, wouldn't you say?”

“My concern is not whether you belong here or not. It's what you intend to do while you're here. Today you're playing superhero. What happens if you decide you're the bad guy?”

“I would be _very_ bad,” Loki replied smoothly with a smile. He sat back and said, “Lucky for you, I have no godly interests in this planet. I am merely an observer. I may be a maker of minor mischief, but for only those who merit my attention, as I am sure you're aware. In fact, I'd hazard a guess it's the reason you're here, Director. Unless this is a, what do you call it, _date_? In which case, pizza? Really?”

“No, this is not a date, but you do happen to be my type. In fact, you're exactly what I'm looking for.”

“Let me guess. This is where you tell me what SHIELD _really_ does and why I'm forever bumping into that Coulson fellow whenever there's any excitement on this dusty little rock of yours.”

“Pretty much. It's also where I tell you about the Avengers initiative. Unless you're busy.”

“Please. Do go on.” Loki leaned back and smiled. “I have no pressing engagements at this time.”


	3. Chapter 3

The first person he met was Natasha Romanoff. Cool as a Frost Giant, she moved with enticing assuredness and had clever clever eyes. Just when Loki thought he had the measure of her, a look or a word from her made him reconsider her altogether. She didn't trust him, this much was evident despite the amiable façade. Her smile and approach reminded him of the time he and Thor had found a wild horse, both wanting the stallion as their prize. 

Thor's approach had been to find purchase of his mane and manoeuvre himself onto his back, trying to break him only to have him buck Thor off, throwing him into a muddy ditch. Loki had laughed, laughing even harder when he saw the seething look on Thor's mud-covered face. Thor had thrown an unnecessary insult at Loki, typically Asgardian and brutish. Loki stopped laughing and approached the animal, softening his voice until it was like honey, looking into his eyes and reaching out tentatively. The horse stayed while Thor watched with a frown. Loki felt a sudden loss of desire to best Thor in something so trivial and patted the horse, before leaving the field. Thor stomped behind, asking him why he didn't take the stallion, after all, the animal was more in his grasp than Thor's. 

“I have no interest in your cast-offs,” Loki had replied curtly, just in time to see Fandral approaching, complete with sordid quips about Loki and his bewitching of animals. Loki was almost certain Fandral had been the one to start the rumour of Loki's success with horses, probably upon hearing Loki tell Thor, “Why don't you tame him for your pet monkey?”

But Romanoff, yes, she had that approach. Taking the right stance and the right tone, smiling an innocent sweet smile that promised she could be trusted, she meant no harm. Sick of being her untamed horse, he told her clearly, “You're right. I can't be trusted. Find something else to do with your leisure time. I'll make some suggestions if you can't come up with anything.”

After that, her face magically seemed to lose that sweet softness. He was impressed that she could possess an ability to alter demeanour on such a minute level. The mouth was not sweet, but pursed in defiance. The stance wasn't inviting, it was waiting for trouble. The eyes were not watching, but calculating. 

One day, as he sat at a computer terminal, having _accidentally_ found his way into a SHIELD research laboratory, she walked in with a frown, stopped when she saw him, and actually relaxed. She sighed and said, “Loki. The trickster. God of mischief. Should have known it was you.”

“Natasha Romanoff. Black Widow,” Loki said, pushing away from the desk and sliding across the floor on his wheeled chair. “I take it you've been busy reading.”

“Googled you a few times,” she said with a shrug. Loki remained impassive, no response forthcoming for gibberish. “Is it all true?”

Loki stood up and took a few steps towards her. Romanoff didn't budge. It was her favoured tactic to let the attack come to her so she could spend that time calculating a defence. He'd seen it enough times when she sparred the one called Barton, both under the illusion that they weren't being watched.

“Depends on what you're talking about,” he told her, his hands well-behaved and clasped behind his back. 

“Loki the troublemaker. The power crazed. Constantly falling victim to his own cruel scheming,” she said as Loki grinned, shaking his head at the inane question. “Loki, bringer of the end of the world. That kind of thing.”

“Ooh,” Loki said smiling and scrunching up his face. “That does sound appealing.”

She smiled, nodding. “We're actually supposed to believe you're from Asgard and your brother is Thor, the god of thunder? Your parents are really Odin and some ice giant –“

Loki took a stiff step forward. His voice was low and controlled as he said, “Before you continue flapping that pretty mouth of yours, I'd advise you that I do not take kindly to being interrogated.”

“I wasn't interrogating you. Just getting to know a potential team member,” she said, still not backing away as he finally stepped right in front of her, the tips of his boots almost touching the tips of hers. He towered over her, but it felt like she was hanging from somewhere above and perhaps he was the one craning up to look at her. “And wondering what a god like you is doing on a rock like this.”

Loki slowly stepped back, his eyes boring into hers. “It's as good as any rock.”

She nodded. “You here to make mischief?”

“Or mayhem,” Loki answered. “Haven't quite decided. What would you prefer?”

Her round mouth shifted into amusement before she nodded and said, “Nice talk.”

Then she was turning and leaving like a woman whose mission had been accomplished. Loki returned to his seat at the computer terminal, slowly turning to face the bright screen and tilting his head at it in contemplation, some strange spicy pleasure tugging at the corner of his mouth.

# *

Clint Barton, Hawkeye, seemed to be well acquainted with Romanoff. They both spent a lot of time whispering in corners at SHIELD headquarters, casting watchful gazes over each other's shoulders. Loki sometimes saw the way they communicated via a single look or nod. Very interesting. Barton, like Romanoff had a quiet and secretive demeanour. His face though capable of smiles and laughter was more often to be found in stony repose. Ah, machines, Loki finally realised. Both skilful destroyers disguised in flesh and commanded by All-Father Fury.

Barton, like Romanoff, was as skilled at the art of warfare as he was at being stealthy. When he appeared, he seemed as cocky and self-assured as any man with a certain level muscle development, but for the most part, he was either elusive or invisible. The first few times Loki met him, he was greeted with the usual close-mouthed flat line of a smile and stony expression, not to mention a pair of eyes that practically projected the lines of data Barton was collecting on Loki, much the way those computing machines worked. 

Barton especially liked to observe out of sight, up in the rafters or hidden on metal walkways in SHIELD's cavernous headquarters. It irked Loki. It was like having a fly buzzing about his ears. During a walkabout with Fury, Loki stopped under a walkway, getting that familiar feeling of Barton's hawk eyes on him, once again.

Loki stopped mid-walk and smiled, while Fury frowned at him and said, “What?”

A moment later there was a sound like tearing and Barton appeared suspended on a thin black wire in front of Loki and Fury. He scowled at Loki and said, “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Fury asked, aiming the full brunt of his suspicious expression at Loki.

“He was up on the walkway, sir,” Barton said, not shifting his gaze from Loki. “Just now. Right next to me. Did you know he could do that? Be in two places at once?”

Fury turned bodily to face Loki. He looked intrigued, annoyed and expectant all at the same time. “I did not.”

“Not nice being spied upon, is it?” Loki asked Barton. “Or do you like that kind of thing?”

Barton smiled, his eyes revealing amusement even though his smile didn't completely exude good humour. “Creeping up on people and whispering in their ear? No, not really my thing.”

“What about lingering in dark corners, following people around. Following _me_ around,” Loki said. Loki tilted forward slightly and added, most sweetly, “If you wanted to get close to me, you just had to say.”

Barton showed teeth this time, his smile finally giving away an ounce of humour. Flatly, he said, “You're not my type.”

Barton gave Fury a nod and then gave Loki a look which appeared to promise some kind of comeuppance for Loki. Wishful thinking, Loki mused as he watched Barton stalk off, his frame stiff with human arrogance.

“Is it really necessary you antagonise everyone you meet?” Fury asked.

Loki grinned and said, “Yes.”

Fury cast a look at Barton who had now synchronised with his mechanical other half, Romanoff. Loki could almost hear gears turning and latches falling into place as they both took a symmetrical stance opposite each other.

“What the hell did you do to make them dislike you this quickly?” Fury asked.

Loki shrugged. “As I recall, I greeted them as is customary and introduced myself as Loki, possible ally, unbeatable foe.”

Fury narrowed one dark eye at him. “I guess that'll do it.”

Loki waved off Fury's disapproval and gave both Barton and Romanoff another good look. He had a feeling that their dislike for him was equal and opposite to his interest in them. Maybe they see Laufeyson, a voice scratched at the back of his mind. Loki scrunched up his face, turning slightly to catch his reflection in a nearby window. There he was, the spectre of some lingering dark magic at the back of his mind, hollow eyes and bruised face .

“Maybe they see you,” Loki whispered thoughtfully. He received a pointed smile in return, not one of his own. “Tell me, Director, do you ever feel the sensation that someone has just dug up your dead bones to cast backward spells.”

Fury just shook his head and said, “You know why I asked you to join the Avengers?”

“Many reasons come to mind, but I'll go with unearthly powers.”

“You got it in one,” Fury said. Ugh, honesty, so dull. “I asked you because you've got _unearthly_ powers which you once used to tie up drug pushers, with a green bow, leaving them to have the crap kicked out them before the cops turned up. Remember that?”

“One of them promised to come back and break my legs before he takes this back.” Loki grinned and held up his black cane, twisting his wrist so Fury could get a good look at the silver serpent handle that adorned the top. “I'm looking forward to it. He had matching cuff-links.”

“You like pissing off the bad guys,” Fury continued over Loki's chatter. “I can live with that.”

“Especially when your gut tells you I should be one of them,” Loki said, winking at Fury. “Isn't that right?”

“In answer to this question and an earlier one, yeah, I get the feeling sometimes that someone just dug up my bones and threw a parade over them. I got that feeling the first time I saw you,” Fury said. 

“And yet, here we are,” Loki said. 

“ _We_ are here,” Fury said, the thought trailing off as he took a deep breath and placed his hands on his hips, long leather coat swept out of the way, his one eye peering at the countless humans in the warehouse, going about their secretive business. “We are here because sometimes it's okay to ignore your instincts. To take chances. Tell me, what do your instincts tell you?”

Loki fell silent, devoid of words and expression. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had paid heed to his instincts. He turned away from Fury, thoughtfully staring at the window into the concrete corridor outside. There he was, the mad reflection, the bruised and pale face looking at him from behind his own image.

“What do my instincts tell me? They tell me...” He could see his dark reflection smile, the mouth turning up at the corners in an almost warped grin. They both whispered together, “You were all made to be ruled.”

He turned to look at Fury, without a mask, without malice, with the truth as it was, written across his face. There was a part of him that wanted to break everything until he could feel whole, a part of him with burning eyes and cold blue skin. A part of him tampered by Aesir magic. A part of him that belonged nowhere and was torn between worlds.

Fury was watching Loki closely when he asked, “So what's stopping you from being king?”

Loki gave the question good thought, coming to the conclusion that he had no desire to be a drifting king of fractured worlds, whether it was Jotunheim, Asgard or Midgard. He belonged to none, so why embrace these worlds to himself and make them his? What had any of them done for him to deserve a god's benevolence? They were welcome to their self-destruction. 

“Well?” Fury pressed.

Loki looked at him and pulled a faux apologetic face. “The food.”

Fury let out an annoyed breath which whistled through his nose. Glaring at Loki, he stomped away in the direction of Romanoff and Barton. 

“The entertainment's good, I'll give you that,” Loki called out behind Fury, watching him synchronise with his two destroyers. Loki spun around to grin at his reflection in the window, seeing himself and his dark shadow. With a smile he asked it, “Don't you think?”

A bespectacled woman with unnatural red hair frowned at him from the other side of the window, pointing at herself and mouthing, “Me?”

Loki frowned at her, shook his head and turned to join Fury and his machines.

# *

Though a god and not subject to the harsher fortunes of humans, Loki still needed... a home? No, that wasn't quite the right word. Home was that place where as a child he held his father's hand, hid behind his mother's skirt, kicked at Thor's ankles. It was... not Midgard. No, he needed a base of operation as it were. Fury wanted nothing more than to have Loki take up a place in SHIELD headquarters, to cement his position on his team of avengers. However, Fury hadn't known one thing; Loki wasn't much for being tied down.

Since his arrival on this world, Loki had tricked his way into many a comfort and as wonderful as it was lounging in luxurious rooms built into tall buildings that looked down on the poor, the ordinary and the insignificant, Loki bored of the sterile extravagance, not to mention the self-styled puny gods of this world who sat on their thrones atop these ugly towers.

He had already acquired a sufficient amount of riches and knowledge from those towers. What he needed was something a little more discrete and he found it in the shape of a boarded up building made of dust-coloured rock, half-hidden under overgrown trees and bushes on some ugly forgotten street. Once inside, he realised the building's purpose immediately. It had been a library once, though the books and computing machines lay forgotten now, gathering dust. 

It was of a small size for a library, almost as if it had been an afterthought the moment it had been conceived. Such great potential lay within those forgotten tomes, but no one would ever open them. He found a cellar with more shelves, books and forgotten machinery. Behind the main reading room were five smaller rooms, one with cooking appliances and seating, two empty, a toileting room, and another with more books, tables, computing machines, boxes and much too much unbound paper. 

Satisfied with his new abode, Loki went to find the main entrance of the building, having entered through the back. He found it in a small circular hall with elegant wide stairs that curved their way to another floor, narrowing as they went along. He followed them to where they stopped short of a set of wooden doors with brass handles. Pulling the doors open, he found a room that was the entire size of the floor beneath. It was like a large hall missing a throne. The floor was dark and wooden, the walls marred by flaking décor, red and gray. The ceiling had large beams that held up the roof and the two large boarded windows on the walls either side of Loki were still letting tinted light streak into the large empty space, casting a strange ethereal glow around the dusty mist. 

Loki stood there in the silence of the room and the silence of his own mind, unable to attach any barbed assumption or judgement to finding this place, still of use, still retaining its beauty, but callously thrown aside all the same. He ended up smiling, only half his mouth managing to find humour in humanity's stupidity. 

A heavy purring inside his breast pocket snapped him out of his quickly turning maudlin mood. Loki reached for the small device and touched the screen to activate it, waiting for the inevitable sound of Fury's voice. “You busy?”

Loki gave the room another look, turning on the spot. “Not really. Why?”

“I want you to meet someone,” Fury said.

Loki rolled his eyes. “You say that a lot.”

“I said it twice,” Fury countered.

“If he or she is anything like your po-faced assassins, I think I'll pass on this occasion,” Loki said. 

“How about you just meet me in an hour, Your Godliness?” Fury said.

Loki tapped the end of his cane on the wooden floor, chewing his bottom lip. He gave a nod and said, “Fine. What's this one called? Rabid Stallion?”

“No.”

“Cat Foot? Blue Maid?”

“No and no.”

Loki laughed and said, “Bat Man?”

“He's called Steve,” Fury said, after somewhat of a pause. Loki pulled a face. “Just be there.”

“How will I recognise you?” Loki asked, hearing the device make a clicking sound before it went completely silent.

# *

When he met Steve Rogers, Captain America, the first thing that greeted Loki was a spectacular physique, one which he instantly attributed to some kind of unnatural intervention. The second thing he noticed was the sullen face. If he were to be kind, he'd say, less sullen and more sad perhaps. Steve Rogers was a man who looked like he would have rather been anywhere but here. Here being a dank dull room with equipment for physical training.

“Steve Rogers, Loki,” Fury had said, standing by them. 

Rogers held out a hand and said, “Mr. Loki.”

“Loki,” Loki replied curtly, pushing the proffered hand down with his cane handle. Rogers frowned, unable to handle the concept. “It's either that or Prince Loki.”

Rogers looked at Fury and said, “Prince?”

“It's a long-assed story,” he said before turning to Loki and adding, “You love the sound of your own voice, go ahead.”

Rogers and Loki watched him stride off irritably. Loki said, “He's not an easy man. But then, he's also right. I _do_ enjoy the sound of my own dulcet tones.”

Rogers waited until Fury was out of earshot before he said, “I hope you won't think I'm being rude, but if you don't mind, I'm not really in a sociable mood right now.”

Loki blinked at him and shrugged. Rogers frowned, nodded and turned back to punching a polished and stuffed animal hide the size of a large boar. Loki looked him up and down, noting the tension coiled in every muscle of the man's body. Loki walked around Rogers to stand opposite him. He placed a palm against the punching sack, jostled slightly by the impact of the punches landing on the other side. Very strong. Strong enough to face gods and monsters perhaps. Loki grabbed the sack with both hands and looked out from behind it.

“Wouldn't you rather have a round with someone who can hit back?” Loki asked.

Rogers straightened up, giving Loki a good long assessing look. Loki gave him what he considered his most charming smile, which only earned a look of suspicion. 

“Director Fury said you're a... a god,” Rogers said, his eyes flicking up and down Loki's person. 

“I doubt very much that's what he said,” Loki said smoothly.

Rogers' forehead crinkled and then his mouth parted, relenting in the smallest of smiles. He stepped away from the punching sack, unwrapping the bandages from around his hands. “His exact words were, 'he says he's a god, but he's probably just some crazy son-of-a-bitch who just happens to be carrying a lot of fire power we might be able to use'.”

Loki laughed, low and quiet. “And what do you believe?”

“I believe that at one time or another, every powerful man thinks he's a god. Doesn't mean it's true,” Rogers said. He then pointed at Loki and rather apologetically added, “Doesn't mean I'm saying you look like a crazy son-of-a-bitch either.”

Loki grinned. “And where would you place yourself in the pantheon of powerful men? A man who survived where others would have perished, you are apparently the most remarkable of your kind. A god amongst men?”

Rogers bristled at that, spine straightening. He shook his head and answered. “I'm just a solider.”

“Just?” Loki said thoughtfully. “Captain, a king is just a man with a crown if he has no army. There's no _just_ about it. You're the _ultimate_ soldier. Imagine if Fury had a dozen of you. I fancy he'd be rather invincible.”

Rogers smiled. “You still talking about Fury? Owning an invincible army seems more your kind of thing.”

“That's a remarkable observation seeing as we've only just met.”

“Isn't it?” Rogers said with a nod of definite agreement. Rogers walked away to pick up a bag before heading towards the door, stopping to tell Loki, “This team Fury's putting together, if he says its to fight a good fight, I'm fine with that and I'm willing to believe I'm signing up for a good thing. You might want to ask yourself why _you're_ here. It's not easy being a soldier, but that's what Fury's asking you to be. If you'd rather be the guy with the army, maybe you don't belong here.”

Loki tilted his head at Rogers and smiled past the strange sharp cutting sensation he felt somewhere in his chest. He already knew he didn't belong here. In fact, he was now in the rare position of not belonging to more than one realm. Rogers gave him a nod, a slightly regretful expression pulling at his eyes and mouth as if he'd somehow been hurtful, before he resumed his course.

Rogers left Loki standing there in the middle of the room, thinking of the beauty of Asgard which did not belong to him and the cruel cold of Jotunheim he had never wanted. Two realms, so far apart that pulled between them Loki had slowly begun to feel himself stretch to the point of snapping. Here he was now, on Midgard. An Aesir god with Jotun strength. Or a Jotun in Aesir skin, wielding Aesir magic. Both. Neither. 

“I can't see what need you'll ever have for two assassins, a super-soldier and a _crazy son-of-a-bitch_ with a lot of fire power,” Loki said, sitting down on the edge of the raised fighting platform in the room. 

Fury stepped into the room, no longer lingering outside, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “The world's always needed heroes.”

“I think you'll find you're only in possession of one hero as yet,” Loki said. He'd found his way into Barton and Romanoff's files. Heroism was not the word that had come to mind. They were Fury's loyal and unquestioning soldiers. Rogers' file on the other hand had indicated a bravery that bordered on stupidity. “I'm more of a –“

“Wild card,” Fury said, in his inimitable fashion. “No one's born a hero, son. Doesn't mean you can't become one.”

“No one is born a monster either. Doesn't mean you won't turn into one,” Loki said absently, looking at his pale hand, the knuckles white as he gripped the serpent handle. He looked up at Fury and said, “Are you prepared for that?”

“We all have a dark side,” Fury said, as if all he did was chase potential heroes who harboured monsters inside. “It's up to you to control it and make sure _it_ doesn't control you.”

Loki tilted his head at Fury and asked with a sigh, “What about you, Director? Do you have a dark side?”

Fury arched his visible brow and turned to leave, telling Loki, “It's pretty much a requirement in this job. You think over what we talked about. Oh, and one more thing? Try to leave without _accidentally_ breaking into one of my labs this time.” Fury left, muttering, “Accident my ass.”

# *

The time passed slow that night. Loki was not in the mood for mischief, burdened instead by a heavy heart. He found himself in the little library, fingers brushing the spines of books that lined the shelves. Picking a volume, he ended up taking it to one of the small rooms at the back of the building. He swept off all the unnecessary debris from one of the tables and sat down in a tolerable chair, using the table edge to prop up his feet, crossing them at the ankles and leaning back.

He opened the book and placed it in his lap, flicking through the pages, mostly crawling with words, occasionally revealing a colourful plate of illustrations. For the most part, the tales were nothing new, if slightly warped. Laughable in places. Then the pages stopped at a full-page illustration inked in black and green hues. A pale man lay bound to a rock, painfully bent backwards, straining to keep his face out of the way of dripping venomous saliva from a serpent's mouth. Loki felt his body grow cold and shudder as he stared at the simple inscription beneath the illustration: Loki's Punishment.

Time was a strange twisting turning serpent, spewing venom in every direction it slithered. Loki's future appeared to have been set in the legends of Midgard's past, the same legends that knew of Odin and knew of Thor. They knew him as the trickster, as the silver-tongue. They knew things he had not known, because time could twist mid-flow and eat itself, swallow its own tail, so the future became someone's past and the past could become someone's future. Loki snapped the book shut and put aside, thoughts running jumping and twisting in his mind. 

He got up and walked out, crossing the tiny hall and stepping into the small room kept for excretion and ablution. There was a small basin there with dirty metal pipe attachments that looked like hooks. He twisted the metal knob on top until water flowed, cupping his hands and letting them fill. Splashing his face a few times, he looked into the mirror on the wall. His dark reflection was silent tonight and he saw only his own pale face, his short hair slowly losing its composure. Loki released more water into the basin, dipping his head into it before he straightened up, throwing his head back and smoothing down his wet hair.

He retreated upstairs where thick candles lit the large room. He had whispered his way into acquiring a few essentials, mainly a hefty high back armchair, a tolerable bed with some elegant sheets and blankets and a full length mirror. He went to the mirror and unbuttoned his silken black shirt, parting it with both hands to peer at his pale skin. Blue, he thought, turn blue. How had Laufey done it with a touch? Was that what it took, a Jotun's touch? Why did he feel cold now and not then? What did Odin's magic take from him to keep him this way?

He looked into his own eyes and whispered words calling upon the mirrors of Asgard to become windows, for the those shining dark surfaces to become mirrors that reflected back across the black of the cosmos. Take me to him, he whispered, give me eyes. The images came to him golden and blurred, his mirror either misted or not good enough to reflect. He could see the shape of the healing bed, the golden healing mist looking brighter than it was. He also saw a figure by the bed, tall and strong, yellow-aired head slightly bowed as he stood there alone.

Loki reached out and touched the mirror as he would have touched Thor, a hand of comfort on his shoulder. Even with all that time and space between them, Thor spun around, his breath hitching. The mist was too heavy for Loki to see his face, but he was sure he could make out bright blue eyes frantically searching for the presence that was not there. Loki slid his fingers up the mirror until they reached Thor's face. In the mirror, Thor brought up his hand and touched his own face.

Loki stepped away from the mirror, his strength waning slightly. He whispered words that veiled the mirror, retreated from all the reflections between here and Asgard. His muscles relaxed as he did so, the warmth of dark energy retreating now that he longer needed its service. It was a dangerous game, summoning windows into worlds through all those dark, light, crisp and blurred reflections. There was always the chance of seeing not what you wanted, but what you feared, those dark chasms of your own mind, your own heart, places in the cosmos not meant for anyone's knowing. He knew his dark reflection, him with the hollow eyes, was born from wielding this magic too much. 

He backed away from the mirror until he found his armchair, sitting down into a sprawl and resting his elbow on the armrest, thoughtfully running the tip of his forefinger under his bottom lip as he looked at his empty bed. He hated the way Thor took up as much of a bed as he could. The way his limbs made a nuisance of themselves when he slept. The way he thought nothing of pressing up behind Loki as they both lay half-asleep, trapping him in an embrace. How the embrace turned to wandering hands. How his mouth went from murmurs to kisses. How they went from slow to frantic, from frantic to slow, Loki never crying out and Thor never keeping it in. 

Scowling at the bed, he turned his face away and let his head fall back against the chair, closing his eyes. Drifting on the cusp of sleep, he heard a knocking, metal on glass. Knock. Knock. Knock. So slow, with all the time of the cosmos behind it. Knock. Knock. Knock. Loki opened his eyes, turning his head towards the sound. He stilled when he saw the image in the mirror. His dark spectre stood there, behind him everything dark and murky. He held a golden spear in his hand, something glowing blue and powerful in its head. 

The spectre was frowning, looking unsure as his eyes searched ahead of him. Loki got up and very slowly moved towards the mirror, watching the eyes of the spectre to see if they followed. They didn't. Glazed and hollow, they remained searching. Was this a vision? Was this gaunt, long-haired creature with sallow skin and worn out armour, a look into the future?

“Can you hear me?” Loki whispered.

The spectre's eyes widened and his head immediately turned in the direction of Loki's voice, a maniacal grin spreading across his face. Loki knew he could not be seen, but those eyes, _his_ eyes were peering straight into him. Mirrors could become windows, but as Loki knew well, they could become doors too. Vision or not, Loki did not want _that_ to trespass the threshold of the mirror. 

He called upon the magic of ancients, of light and dark and ice and fire and he asked for the magical veil to be drawn, to bring him his reflection, to close all unnatural portals between his mirror and other realms. The image in the mirror began to cloud and the spectre looked confused and then irate, banging his fist against the glass. The mirror shook and Loki who had never feared anything in his life, jumped back with a gasp. When the mirror restored itself to its purpose, Loki was left looking at himself, hands fisted by his sides and spine straight with false bravado. 

“Well,” he said breathlessly. “That was interesting.”


	4. Chapter 4

It had been the case that if ever something was wrong, Loki always found himself staying close to Thor. It was never with the expectation that Thor would remedy the situation, it was more of a leftover feeling from their childhood when Loki had felt safest by Thor's side, fearing that if he perhaps left it, that would be when the monsters would come from him. From him? Surely he had meant to think _for_ him. Loki frowned and abandoned that line of thought. 

His mirror had left him a little on edge. He really could have done with Thor's brand of reasoning in this situation, which would have been to suggest crossing the threshold of the mirror to find this creature who looked just like Loki and to demand to know what he wanted by throttling him until he couldn't divulge any information even if he wanted to. Disturbed by the night's events, Loki found himself at the place he least expected to visit. The place Fury no doubt called home.

They had all assembled early morning at SHIELD in a large room with glass walls and a round grey table. Fury wanted to discuss more recruits for this this terribly secret venture. A few minutes into the briefing and Loki's mind took a huge detour to altogether different secret ventures. As children, he and Thor had spent an extraordinary amount of time creating mayhem and making secrets. It usually involved Thor breaking things, _accidentally_ , and Loki keeping secrets about the things he had witnessed being broken. In time their repertoire for the veiling of chicanery would grow to cover drunken brawls, apple theft, misplacing of farm animals, offence to the old, offence to the young, offence to almost everyone in between. 

It was an exhausting list. 

“Forget it,” Loki said one evening, sat on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him, book open in his lap. “Get Sif to lie for you. Father'll believe anything she says.”

Thor sat down next to Loki, if you could call it sitting. It had been more like a gangly sack of potatoes dropping to the floor. Loki knew Thor did it just to be annoying, messily falling against him. “But you're so good at it, _Silvertongue_.”

“Is that one of Fandral's?” Loki turned the page in his book, enjoying the sound of the fire crackling in front of them. 

Asgard was in its winter season and the fires were lit everywhere. As aesthetically pleasing as they looked, Loki had found them unnecessary, not feeling the cold as much as everyone else. Of course, then he remembered the probable cause for his immunity to the chilled air. Which was why he was sat here by a fire he didn't need.

“Why do you dislike him so?” Thor stretched his arms out across the cushioned seats of the couch he and Loki were leaning against. Loki could feel the warmth of Thor's arm on the back of his neck and he fidgeted to get away.

“I'm quite indifferent,” Loki said, tracing the corner of his current page with his forefinger, concentrating on the bite of the paper's edge.

“Volstagg says he spies the sprouting of jealousy,” Loki could feel a finger circling in his hair, curling a strand around it.

He jerked his head forward and scowled. “Jealous of what?”

Thor shrugged, his hand idle again, patting a dull rhythm on the couch. “He says the time for one of us to be king and consort is nearing and naturally you feel angered by the presence of my _many_ admirers.”

Loki snorted. “You've had admirers since you could crawl, Thor. Why would any of your new sycophants be cause for jealousy?”

Thor's hand had strayed again. “Why does Father grow red in the face when Mother laughs at Heimdall's jests?”

Loki resolutely kept his eyes fixed on the letters in his book as the back of Thor's knuckles grazed his cheek. Loki scowled in annoyance. “ _What_ are you doing?”

“You know... most couples who are betrothed have done so much more by now, Loki,” Thor said quietly, conspiratorially. Typically. 

Loki turned to face Thor, pushing aside Thor's hand with a finger. “Do I look like some tavern boy who's going to drop his breeches in response to your dire methods of seduction?”

Thor scowled at his rejected hand. Giving Loki a disapproving look he said, “It will make for a poor union, your metal breeches and –“

“Your uncontrollable hammer?” Loki asked with an arched brow. 

Thor moved to half lay on the floor, propped up on his elbows next to Loki's knees, one foot propped up on the couch. He grinned and said, “What will you do once we're in the marital bed?”

“The same thing I do now when you crawl into my bed. Kick you until you stop snoring,” Loki said. Thor prodded him in the shoulder with the tip of his boot. Loki gave Thor an irritated look. “We're betrothed to appease the Jotuns. No other reason. When you are king –“

“When _one_ of us is king,” Thor interrupted. He gave Loki a smirk and said, “The fates could still be kind and make you king. Just give Father one of your doe-eyed looks of innocence.”

“When _you_ are king, no one will expect you to honour the vows of companionship towards your Jotun consort. I doubt anyone expects any actual consorting to take place in this union.” Loki looked down at his book, scratching his fingernail across the words there. “Your love and affection is to be preserved for your Aesir queens who will provide the future rulers of Asgard.”

Thor's foot prodded his shoulder again, until Loki looked up to see the earnest expression on Thor's face. “Then I promise, that the greatest portion of my love and affection will always belong to you.”

Loki let the tug at the corner of his mouth coax him into smiling. “And there goes any desire on my part to steal the throne of the heir and son.”

“Loki... ” Thor looked at Loki with a troubled expression. “Does it anger you that I will be king?”

They stared at each other for a moment. Quietly he answered, “With what right could I ever make a claim to the throne when I am... _crushed_ under the debt I owe to our father? I was left to perish, the abandoned child of a Frost Giant, and he made me a prince of Asgard. I cannot even begin to repay –“

“Stop,” Thor said, pulling his foot down from the couch and sitting, drawing his legs up. “You make us all into strangers when you speak of debts. You think our mother and father want you to repay them for their love? You think that is what _I_ want?”

Loki shook his head. “It's not about what you want. It's... I – I would give anything to be your brother, Thor. Your flesh and blood. Instead of the flesh and blood of your enemy.”

The confession made his eyes burn and he looked away at the fire which seemed to glow brighter than Loki knew it to be, quickly prodding the corners of his eyes with his fingertip, eliminating evidence of emotions better left buried. Next to him, Thor moved until he was once again sitting next to Loki, leaning against the couch. 

Thor slung his arm around Loki's shoulders, nudging Loki's chin with his fisted hand. “Let's make mischief.”

Loki looked at Thor through embarrassingly burning eyes. “What kind of mischief?”

“Fandral has planned a clandestine meeting with a girl. She has a very angry father,” Thor said. 

Loki smiled. “I have a new enchantment we could use.”

It had not worked well. Not for Loki, not for Thor and especially not for Fandral who ended up nursing a black eye and sore appendages. Loki looked as doe-eyed as possible during the whole escapade and laughed at both Thor and Fandral as they all sat drinking late into the night. When Loki lay drowsing in bed, he was still smiling at their antics. His eyes had just begun to drift shut when he felt the mattress of his bed dip under someone's weight.

Loki groaned, “You have your own bed.”

“Yours is more comfortable,” Thor said, making a nuisance of himself as he patted down a pillow and took half of Loki's covers. As ever, he then turned onto his side, angled so his behind was forcing Loki to relinquish more inches of the bed. 

Loki sighed, turning onto his stomach, almost on the edge of the bed now. He sleepily blinked into the dark, thinking about his conversation with Thor earlier. Why did he have to taint everything he had with a word like debt? Why couldn't he just have this, this life with these people, without thinking of whatever it was lurking under his skin?

Thor kicked him in the back of his leg, hard. “Sleep.”

Loki grimaced in pain. “Norns, you are such a mule.”

“I can hear you thinking,” Thor groused. “Sleep. You have tomorrow and all the days after for your maudlin thoughts.”

“Perhaps if some us thought at all during the day, the rest of us wouldn't have to think twice as much all the way into the night,” Loki said sweetly.

“Don't start with me,” Thor said, before he muttered, “Cow.”

Loki smiled drowsily into his pillow. Blinking against the heaviness of oncoming sleep, he very quietly said, “Do you know that I love you, Thor? More than ten thousand flesh and blood brothers ever could.”

He heard Thor sigh behind him before he was slowly turning over and throwing a heavy arm over Loki. He pressed a kiss to Loki's head. “I know, Loki. Go to sleep.”

Loki had lay there fighting sleep for a few more moments, thinking of a future where despite being a ruling consort, he would be looked upon as the enemy of Asgard in the king's bed. He was a prince today, but there were those who would use him as an excuse to go to war. He was their monster in waiting. In the end, when the war would come, Loki would be the one to blame. 

Now Loki sat far from Asgard and far from Thor's side in some sterile Midgardian room. For what? Hoping Thor would chase after him instead of the Jotuns? What had they ever done to deserve such mercy? 

“The briefing finished twenty minutes ago.”

Loki frowned and looked around the table. Barton, Romanoff and Fury were gone. Rogers was lingering in the doorway, looking curious. 

“I was enjoying the silence,” Loki said absently, returning to gaze at nothing in particular, ignoring Rogers. “At least... I thought I was. Now I need a distraction.”

Loki got up and stalked out of the room, past Rogers who was still opening his mouth to speak and snapping it back shut without a word. Loki walked down the corridor, ignoring all reflective surfaces. The creature with his face would have to wait for now. 

“Hey!” Rogers called out. Loki stopped, scowled and turned about to look at Rogers. Rogers nodded in the direction Loki had been headed. “You're leaving?”

Loki narrowed his eyes at Rogers and eyed the door at the end of the corridor. If he wasn't mistaken, he thought he had made quite a strong impression that he was indeed leaving. He looked back and gave Rogers a smile. “I am.”

Rogers took a few steps towards Loki. “Where do you go? I mean, I know you're not living in the compound, but what exactly do you do when you're not here?”

“Look, learn, loiter,” Loki said with a shrug. “Why the interest?”

Rogers shrugged. “Just curious.”

“Yes,” Loki said. “I do like that about you Midgardians. Curious little monkeys.”

Rogers blinked. “Well... nice talking.”

Loki gave Rogers a long thoughtful look. “Tell me, since they fished you out from the bottom of your icy ocean, how many times have you ventured out into your world?”

Rogers ducked Loki's enquiring eyes, directing false interest at the shining floor. “Enough times to know it's not really my world anymore.”

“Well, considering the dire state of it, I'm inclined to believe no one actually thinks of this world as _theirs_ ,” Loki said. Rogers' face retained an impeccably amiable expression, though his eyes seemed to be projecting a picture show of violence. Loki exhaled heavily and said, “I am in bad spirits today. I meant no slight.”

“I thought that was your thing,” Rogers said. 

Rogers was right. Unless by the term thing he meant something other than what Loki had inferred it to mean. By the Norns, when had he gone from delighting in barbs to regret over causing offence? He gave Rogers a good look, eyeing his neatly brushed hair, his well maintained attire, his remarkable posture, the defiant set of his face and his hideously honest eyes. Was it possible to catch good intentions? Loki hoped not. On a bad day, all he had was his well-mannered indifference.

“Your wiles are not working on me,” Loki said, giving Rogers a suspicious look.

“ _Wiles_?” Rogers asked, looking confused.

Loki straightened up, realising Rogers didn't seem to be the type to employ wiles. Wiles were slightly too dishonest. Wiles would probably cause him a rash of some sort. “Yes, you're right, this conversation has gone rather awry.”

“I know there's no way for me to actually confirm if this is true or not, but... are you all right?” Rogers asked slowly, as if Loki had been dropped on his head from a great height. “Is there someone we should be calling right now?”

Loki stiffened slightly. Truth be told, he was not _quite_ all right. He looked at Rogers and said, “I'm feeling a visit to the tavern coming on. Drink, Captain?”

“It's nine in the morning,” Rogers said. 

“I have no intention of telling you how much you should drink,” Loki said.

Rogers opened his mouth, shut it, sighed and then said, “I'll get my jacket.”

# *

Loki knew of a dank place near his place of residence. A small smoky tavern with mangy types drowning their misery while watching news of the world of sport on a screen mounted behind the long wooden counter. It was only a short walk from the large black window of a local shop, through which he and Rogers had arrived. Rogers had remained looking stunned for the duration of their walk, refusing to comprehend that the universe was full of many modes of transportation.

After about an hour of drinking Rogers put down his glass and said, “Right. Can't get get drunk. Forgot about that.”

“I'm surprised anyone can on this watered down swill.” Loki put his own drink down and sighed. The barkeep had stopped polishing the inside of a glass that frankly would never shine and glared at Loki. Loki grinned and said, “Personally, I come here for the smiling faces.”

They morosely made their way back outside, Rogers asking, “Gods can't get drunk?”

“Oh they can get drunk,” Loki said. “I've been party to many an occasion of excess where I witnessed so-called gods performing acts that would forbid them admittance into a barn.”

Rogers' eyes flicked to the side for a moment, indicating that if he were more expressive, he would probably be looking disgusted, and quite rightly too. “Earth beer not good enough for you, huh?”

“For many reasons,” Loki said before spotting a young man across the street and stopping in his tracks. Stubbly, pale and shabbily dressed, Loki knew him as one of the local traders of recreational supplements. Loki looked at Rogers and said, “One moment. I have some business.”

Loki ran across the busy street and approached the youth who gave Loki a nod, asking him what he could do for him on this fine day. Loki revealed a large wad of paper money and handed some to the youth, promising him another sizeable amount in exchange for what he required. Then, looking deep into his eyes Loki told him what he needed and gave his will just the smallest nudge to make sure it would be done. 

“You will do that for me, won't you, Joey?” Loki asked, receiving a dazed slow nod. Loki smiled and said, “Run along then, daylight's burning.”

Joey was already half-way down the street by the time Rogers crossed the road, eyeing him with interest as he departed. “What was that all about?”

“Just some business. Joey is a very resourceful young man,” Loki said. “Potential Avengers material I'd say. And unlike us, he can frequently enjoy the pleasures of getting drunk in this realm. This way.”

Rogers followed with a frown, his gaze prone to distraction. He was staring at a colourful hair arrangement when Loki stopped in front of the black iron gates of his abode, mostly hidden behind wild foliage viewed from where he was stood.

“We're here,” Loki said, gesturing to the gates.

Rogers seemed to have some difficulty pulling his attention away from a place across the street. When he finally did, he said, “Hey, I'll... I'll be right back.”

Loki watched Rogers dart across the street, authoritatively holding up a hand to slow down one vehicle. Loki turned around and pushed one of the gates open with the serpent head of his cane. Climbing the stone steps of the building, he uttered a few words to undo the charms that kept the building under lock and key. 

In the vestibule, he looked up at the narrow staircase that went all the way to his bedchamber. How foolish that his heart quivered ever so slightly at the thought of going up there where his mirror was silent and still. He looked at the doors to the library, the dark of the room behind them making their windows black and mirror-like. Stepping close he saw himself, his hair neatly combed back, his black suit pristinely tailored, the silk scarf sitting serenely around his neck. Just him. No one else.

“Hey.” Loki jumped at the hand on his shoulder, turning to find Rogers staring at him, looking curious. Loki looked at the goods in Rogers' hands as he lifted up a white bag and said, “I brought bagels.”

“Wonderful,” Loki said without enthusiasm or interest.

“You all right?” Rogers asked with a probing look.

Loki flashed him a smile. “Bagels, you say?”

Loki didn't much like bagels as it happened, but the black bitter coffee accompanying them was more than welcome. Rogers took a tour of the library, bagel in hand as he eyed the discarded objects about the place, Loki following like a shadow, whispering light into dark corners as he kept an eye on all the reflective surfaces, thanking the Norns for all the dust that had settled in this place.

“I would never have imagined it,” Rogers murmured quietly, stopping in front of a shelf and pulling out a book. “Abandoned libraries.”

“Your world has become too intelligent for books,” Loki said, leaning against the library counter and drinking his coffee. Rogers looked so disappointed someone would have thought Loki had insulted his children. “No matter. One day they are bound to learn there is much magic held between the written word and the page which holds it.”

“I hope you're right.” Rogers smiled slightly, nodding. He put the book back and walked towards Loki, finishing off his last bite of bagel and wipe at his mouth with a paper napkin. “You look like you've got something on your mind. Feel like sharing?”

“Not really.”

Rogers nodded. “Because you've got a line of friends at the door, just waiting.”

“Whatever gives you the idea I need friends?”

Rogers was smiling, but there was something painful and tight about the smile. The colour of his eyes had clouded with the murky look of hurt. He said, “Trust me, everyone can do with a good friend.”

Loki thought about this friends. The list seemed to start and end with Thor. Thor's band of warriors, they weren't really Loki's friends. They endured him because they loved Thor. Loki's friends? They were the books that told him how to weave spells, to fold space, to bend minds. Those were some good friends. Everyone else had just drifted over time.

Loki blinked sulkily at Rogers, curling his lip as he picked up Rogers' coffee cup from the library counter and handed it to him. “Drink your coffee before it gets cold, Captain.”

Rogers took it with a disapproving shake of his head just as Loki's pocket began to vibrate. Loki extracted the phone, smiling at the furious picture of the caller. He showed it to Rogers before answering, the other man managing another layer of disapproval on top of the current one. Loki listened quietly and with great interest before covering the mouthpiece and looking at Rogers.

“The director says Captain Rogers has gone missing,” Loki said. He frowned and added, “This may require the services of the Avengers.”

Rogers rolled his eyes and took the phone, walking away as he said, “Sir, it's fine. I'm with Loki.”

Loki quietly laughed to himself, watching Rogers standing there like a soldier at attention. Truly, he thought, a warrior and a soldier were two different things. He would have pondered the thought a little longer, but he was drawn to the vestibule, looking up the steps to his bedchamber. He gripped the cane in his hand and made his way up, Rogers' voice fading into the background. Stopping at the threshold of the room, he look at the mirror inside, hidden away under a blanket. Loki walked in slowly, his footfalls echoing across the wooden floor until he came to a stop and reached out with his cane, using the serpent head to push aside the blanket until it fell away from the mirror and landed in a pile on the floor.

Pressing the serpent head to the mirror's surface, he softly murmured, “Show me.”

The mirror began to mist, the serpent head hissing the spell Loki used last, looking for every portal crossed. The mirror cracked ever so slightly, making Loki step away in surprise, his serpent turning solid and silver. His spell had been broken. Something... no, someone had broken his spell. There were only two people who could break Loki's spells. One was his father, Odin. The other was Loki. The mirror's mist went from grey to black and from within that blackness, _he_ emerged, the other one.

“Well, that answers one question,” Loki said quietly. “Not mad. At least, not yet.”

His reflection smiled, eyes bright and manic. Grinning, he said, “No. Not yet.”

Loki pointed his cane at the mirror. “You've been courting my attention. Why?”

The other was peering past Loki, eyeing his surroundings. He pressed his hand on the other side of the mirror, pushing and then withdrawing his hand with a polite smile that Loki knew to be duplicitous. Quickly, he asked himself, what were the chances he could deceive himself? Looking into the mirror and seeing those bright mad eyes, he reasoned the chances were reasonably high.

“Why not?” the other said amiably. 

Loki looked at the other, unnerved by that electric look in his eyes. “The veil between realities exists for a reason. There are things even gods are not meant to see.”

The other tilted his head at Loki, giving him a long appraising look. “And yet, it pleases me to see you well.”

Loki stared at the mirror in silence. His reflection did not appear so well. Quietly, Loki asked him, “What happened to you?”

“I fell. From a great height,” the other said, his voice marred by a slight tremor. He seemed distracted then, head turning sharply towards a noise Loki couldn't hear, eyes widening. Looking back at Loki he smiled. “I'm afraid this will have to wait.”

The other touched his sceptre to his side of the mirror and was quickly eaten up by a cloudy mist before the mirror shone and returned Loki his own reflection, his face split by a crack in the mirror, looking confused, cane gripped in hand and Steve Rogers standing in the doorway behind him with his mouth slightly open.

Loki turned to look at Rogers who said, “Your reflection was talking to you.”

“Just a small conversation. Nothing to worry about. Though, I must say, when your elders tell you not to dabble with dark magic, you really ought to listen.”

“I'm sorry, _what_?”

Loki considered he had two options. He could send Rogers back to SHIELD and sit down and have a quiet think about this. Or he could sit Rogers down and have a loud think about this. Alternatively, he could dispense with thinking altogether and run back to Asgard and talk to that doom-monger Heimdall who had his eyes on all corners of the cosmos and the dismally depressing advice that always went with it.

“Come. Sit.” Loki pointed at his bed. Rogers gave him a displeased look but came into the room all the same, perching himself on the end of the bed, his eyes wandering between Loki and the mirror. Loki sat down next to him and said, “It's a bit complex.”

“I'm sure I can handle it,” Rogers said impatiently. Loki looked ahead and tried to think of a place to start. He was quiet for a very long time. “Well?”

“I'm thinking,” Loki said curtly. After another long silence, he finally said, “Modes of transportation. Remember what I said about them?”

Rogers nodded and said, “The universe is full of them.”

Loki smiled, pleased. “There are many methods of traversing the universe, Captain. There are the common and mundane methods where the universe dictates the way we move and then there are the more unconventional methods. Ones were the traveller tells the universe how to move.”

Rogers' brows climbed up his forehead. “That kind of sounds like cheating.”

Loki grinned and confirmed, “It is.”

Rogers' narrowed his eyes. “Right.”

“Your hand,” Loki said as he pulled on the scarf around his neck. Rogers tentatively brought his hand up and Loki turned it palm down, draping one end of the scarf over it before he touched the middle of Rogers' hand, pressing the tip of his finger down firmly. “When we move across the universe, we move according to the dictates of time and space. It is, I have been taught, the natural way to move. However...”

Rogers frowned at Loki's finger on top of his hand, the way it slowly pulled on the scarf, pulling it back, moving the fabric. “You prefer to make time and space move around you.”

“Yes,” Loki said, staring at Rogers with an appreciation that alarmed even him. “I don't suppose you can tell me the drawback.”

Rogers was frowning at his hand, concentrating on what he was seeing. His frown eased and he nodded towards the part of his hand which now lay uncovered, the scarf having moved. He looked up at Loki, brows raised in question. 

“Exactly. Pull on the fabric of time and space and it's likely you're pulling it _away_ from somewhere else. Lifting the veil, however momentarily it might be, between realities.” Loki pulled the scarf away completely. “I have a gift, Captain. I can see across realms without moving from where I sit. Instead of moving closer to what I wish to see –“

“You just bring what you want to see closer to you,” Rogers said as Loki nodded thoughtfully, trying to trace the appearance of those hollow eyes in his memory. Rogers must have seen something troubled him. “What?”

“He's been trying to reach me,” Loki said quietly. “The other me. He saw me first and he's been trying to get my attention.”

“Why?” Rogers asked. “What do you think he wants from you?”

“Isn't that the interesting question?” Loki said as he stood, re-arranging his scarf around his neck before looking down at a puzzled Rogers. Loki frowned down at him. “Did Director Fury have anything interesting to say?”

“He and Romanoff have an assignment in Malibu,” Rogers answered absently, his eyes on the mirror again. He pointed at it and said, “Can he come through there onto this side?”

“Small possibility of that yes,” Loki said, smoothing down his hair and quickly asking, “What's in Malibu?”

“Something to do with a tin can,” Rogers said flatly, staring at Loki. He sighed then and looked a little forlorn as he added, “He doesn't always make a lot of sense.”

Loki sympathised. “Men with eye patches rarely do.”


	5. Chapter 5

Loki lifted his finger to his mouth, tracing the edge of his lip before he found himself biting on his fingernail. A moment later, Rogers' hand came down on top of his, pushing it to the table. 

Loki threw Rogers a glare, receiving a look which started with a disapproving scowl and morphed into the raised eyebrows of reasoning. “It's a bad habit.”

“I bet it's not his worst,” Barton said flatly from across the table, not looking up from his breakfast plate.

“He's right about that,” Loki told Rogers who was still frowning at Barton. Rogers shook his head and went back to reading his newspaper and slowly drinking his coffee, leaving Loki with his library book of Norse nightmares. 

They were sitting in the booth of a modest diner not far from where Loki resided. Rogers had remembered passing it days ago, calling Loki up and asking him how he felt about breaking him out of SHIELD and taking him to breakfast. He had felt fine about it as it happened. The mirror troubled him, kept him from thinking straight. He needed distraction. 

Loki hadn't expected the added bonus of being distracted by Barton when he stepped through the mirror and into Rogers' room. To Barton's credit, his surprise amounted to the observation, “Travels through mirrors. Doesn't know how to knock. Good to know.”

Loki knocked the head of his cane on Rogers' mirror, Barton responding with a roll of his eyes. As Rogers picked up his leather jacket from his bed, Loki looked around at the room, a small bedchamber with an adjoining room for washing. There was a large bed, large dresser, mirror, television, small table with two chairs and no windows. The dresser had a few toiletries and two photographs. One was of a dark haired woman who stood with a stern expression and posture and another with two men, one dark-haired and grinning, the other small and smiling; surely not Rogers, even with the strange and uniquely inimitable humility of that particular smile. Loki looked away to find Rogers had caught Loki's eye wandering over his possessions.

Rogers' looked averted Loki's gaze, nodding towards the mirror. “Ready?”

Barton stepped in font of him and said, “This I have to see.”

Loki, still looking at Rogers, leaned back, letting his serpent head rest on the mirror. The mirror shone and they were through, Barton making an underwhelmed noise on the other side. Loki smiled, far too pleased by Barton's refusal to be impressed by anything and by extension, his refusal to fear anything. He had heart, Loki had to give him that. 

They appeared on the other side of Loki's mirror as Rogers had pointed out that one couldn't simply walk out of shop windows in daylight. Even in this world of disinterested people, someone would be bound to notice and ask questions. So they stood in his bedchamber, Barton's clever eyes quickly sweeping the whole room before the three of them descended downstairs and went through the library, heading towards the back exit.

“You _live_ here?” Barton had asked, expression of disbelief etched across his face. “No, it's nice. I like it. Always wanted to see where Ichabod Crane might live.”

Rogers laughed, showing a row of pearl white teeth. He pointed at Barton with a nod. Seeing Loki's questioning look he said far too happily, “He's a character in a book.”

Loki smiled, amused by the blushing pride written across Rogers' face. To Barton he said, “You know, I'm insulted over this display of ignorance. I hope you don't honestly expect me to believe you don't already have knowledge of my residence. No doubt that wonderful phone contraption gave away my location the first time I used it to speak to Director Fury.”

“Oh, I'm not surprised by the location. No. Just the fact that you _live_ here,” Barton had retorted, rather shamelessly. Loki would have been annoyed if such shamelessness wasn't quite pleasing. 

“I like it,” was Rogers' verdict as he eyed the high ceiling, his hand reaching out not so much to touch a pillar, but caress it. Sentimental fool, Loki thought as he had walked on ahead. 

Breakfast was a tolerable enough affair with Barton digging into his plate of grease and fat with gusto, matching Rogers who had left his plate clean and was now quietly reading his newspaper, taking the odd sip of coffee. Loki put his book down and looked past Rogers' arm at something that seemed to have the Captain's undivided attention; a picture of a man with very well landscaped facial hair and a rather sulky look on his face.

“Who is he?” Loki asked, when he noticed Rogers was frowning at the picture. 

Rogers looked up and gave Loki one of those caught-out open-mouthed looks. “Uhm, no one. I mean, no one I know. I knew his father though. Howard Stark.”

Barton reached for the paper, pulling it from Rogers' grasp. “You knew Stark's old man? What was he like?”

Rogers nodded. “He was a good man.”

Barton frowned at the paper before pushing it back in Rogers' direction. Loki intercepted it and looked at the page. It appeared that philanthropist billionaire genius businessman Tony Stark had made a mule of himself at his own celebrations and now the invested were asking if this was a man in which it was worth them investing anymore. The location of Stark's home stood out and it quickly became clear that there was at least one man who was possibly very much still interested in investing in Tony Stark.

“Am I correct in assuming that our fearless director is in Malibu courting this man of iron?” Loki asked, looking at Barton who was now flicking through Loki's book.

Rogers' head snapped up from his coffee and his attention had returned to the paper. He pulled it away from Loki, muttering, “Malibu. Wait, he's the tin can?”

Barton shrugged. “Don't ask me. Fury points, I shoot. I've got commitment issues about possessing any information beyond that level.”

“I don't understand,” Rogers said, looking adorably confused. “Fury wants him to join the team? Some dangerously out of control egomaniac?”

“Yes,” Loki said slowly, taking a leisurely sip of his coffee. “Fury doesn't seem the kind of man who wants to control the out of control at all.”

Rogers made a face, one that implied he may have expected Loki to be just as alarmed as him. Now, _that_ was truly adorable. Looking away disgruntled, he said, “I hope he knows what he's doing. And I hope there's more to this Stark than just an impressive suit of armour.”

Loki leaned close to Rogers and looked at the picture of Stark. “He has a rather infectious smile. It'll look good in a group photograph.”

Rogers turned to slowly blink at him, utterly humourless. Loki grinned in response. “Oh, don't look so sour.” 

“Jesus. What the hell is this?” Loki looked away from Rogers to see Barton holding up his book. He rolled his eyes as Barton turned the book back towards himself and read, “And when Thor did seize Loki, Brokk went to _cut off_ Loki's _head_ , but Loki declared that the wager called for his head only, and not for his neck. So Brokk did begin _sewing_ Loki's lips together. He could not make an incision with his own knife, but with his brother's awl he managed to make openings, Christ, through which he could _sew the mouth_ up tight; that done, he tore out through the lips the thong he had used in sewing them together. Uhm. Wow, Brokk and Thor sound like real stand up guys.”

“Mind how you speak,” Loki said slowly. “I will not have you say a word against Thor. This world knows nothing of the son and heir of Asgard.”

Barton was flicking through the book. Something caught his attention and he grinned. “According to this he once had to dress up as a bride with _Loki as his maidservant_ as part of a ruse to retrieve his _mighty_ hammer.”

Loki blinked and looked into his coffee. “I'm adopted.”

Barton grinned, getting up and nodding in the direction of the ridiculously and somewhat misleadingly named men's room. “Try not to miss me.”

“I'll pretend to be you with good aim then,” Loki said, smiling at Barton.

“Hey, you two, break it up,” Rogers said, picking up the book Barton had relinquished. 

“Whatever you say, Cap,” Barton said, striding away from the booth with a big grin. 

Rogers began to open the book and Loki stopped him by placing a hand over Rogers' hand just as he lifted the cover, shutting it firmly. “The drunken robot man is much more interesting, trust me.”

Rogers withdrew his hand and angled himself towards Loki, nodding at the book currently under Loki's protection. “Is any of that stuff true?”

“These stories are the produce of a fertile imagination. Half-truths that have been fed to swell into nightmarish drama to titillate the bored,” Loki said. He tapped the book and added, “These tales have very little to do with the Asgard I know.”

“What about the Asgard you don't know?” Loki frowned at the question. Rogers seemed uncomfortable, the way he straightened up slightly. It took a while for Loki to realise, Rogers was trying to spare his feelings about something. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had regard for Silvertongue's feelings. “That guy in your mirror looks like he comes from a pretty dark place.”

Loki blinked at Rogers and then turned his gaze to the book. It was one of many books containing different versions of the same stories. He wondered if somewhere far away his Asgard also lay waiting on a dusty bookshelf, talking about the Jotun foundling consort who ran away and dreamed every night of Thor who stood angry with Gungnir in his hands, thirsty for Jotun blood. 

“It's quite plausible, I suspect, that this _is_ , or possibly may become some poor unfortunates' Asgard one day. I suppose it'll be fun finding out if I'm that unfortunate.” Loki gave Rogers a tight smile, the Midgardian looking at Loki, his forehead crinkled with curiosity. Loki shook his head and said, “Take heed, Captain, it would be ill-advised to ask questions of a personal nature at this moment.”

Rogers smiled kindly and Loki had to turn away. He opened his book, but Rogers pulled it away from him, handing him the newspaper instead. “Give the book a rest.”

Loki frowned at Rogers, wondering if he should have been offended by the impudent command. Nevertheless, the book remained closed for now.

# *

They returned to SHIELD an hour later. From what Loki had already ascertained, it appeared that Barton had a daily routine of sorts, which Loki guessed featured hanging around spying on people and pointing pointy things at them from hidden corners. Rogers' was either to be found hitting those punching sacks, looking forlorn over a computer in a SHIELD laboratory, or pouring over newspapers in his windowless quarters. Loki considered that Rogers' existence wasn't much different from his own. They were both far from home, only Rogers couldn't return to the woman in that photograph and refused to spent idle hours thinking about what mischief there was to be made.

Loki had been eyeing the photographs again, intrigued by this sepia world from which Rogers hailed. The little man in one of the pictures still had about him the same look of defiance that Loki saw today in Captain America. Loki turned away from the photograph to see Rogers who was frowning at some nonsensical thing Barton had just said. Rogers politely nodded and patted Barton on the arm, the other man opening the door to leave Rogers' quarters. He gave Loki a parting nod and left, shutting the door behind him. Rogers sighed and combed a hand through his neat hair, leaving it... neat. Loki nodded at his conclusion about Rogers; truly a god amongst men. 

“So,” Rogers said to Loki, “What are the Trickster's plans for the day?”

Not understanding at first, Loki frowned. He remembered the book then and the fact that Trickster was one of many names for Loki. He quite liked it actually, it had a certain ring to it. _Trickster_. Yes, he thought, very appealing.

Pleased, he smiled at Rogers and said, “Tricks, one hopes. You?”

Rogers looked around the room and shrugged. “Same as usual, I guess.”

“And what is the usual, if you don't mind my asking?”

The question made Rogers smile, though Loki had no idea why. “Waiting, mostly.”

“Waiting,” Loki echoed.

Another shrug. “To catch up on everything that's changed. For orders. To wake up and find out all this is a really... _really_ strange dream. Same as usual.”

Loki sighed, feeling a little impatient. “You, my dear Captain, need a change of scenery.”

Rogers tilted his head in the direction of the unbearably boring walls, decorate to keep the occupants of the room sedated naturally, no doubt. “I'm pretty sure the scenery is the same all over SHIELD.”

Loki held up his precious cane, twiddling it around his fingers before letting it spin to a stop, pointing the serpent head towards the mirror and smiling. “Do you think we can get your bed to fit through here?”

Rogers narrowed his eyes at Loki. “What?”

Loki waved off the question. “You're right, I'm approaching this in a completely Midgardian manner. I'll just shrink the damn lot.”

Rogers stared and Loki pointed his cane at the middle of the room, whispered a few sweet words of Aesir magic and then he shrank the damn lot.

# *

The contents of Rogers' room ended up in one of the rooms behind the library. Though it had no adjoining room for washing, there were limited facilities for cleansing in the room across the hall, and Rogers' room was still much larger than his quarters in SHIELD. Most importantly, one wall had a row of windows and the sun was spilling through them and filling the room with light. Rogers was standing in the middle of the room just staring at the windows, mouth slightly open as he smiled. It didn't seem to take much to make him happy. It had been a while since Loki had envied someone other than Thor.

Rogers turned around slowly and said, “Are you sure this is okay?”

“We are occupying a building that belongs to neither of us, the electricity we're using is being siphoned off by, well, not entirely legitimate means and we've just stolen a room's worth of furniture from SHIELD.” Loki smiled and clapped a hand on Roger's arm. “Are _you_ sure this is okay?”

“The building is abandoned. We're going to pay for the electricity once Fury figures out a way to stop us from being thrown into jail and we'll return the furniture once I get my own. I have a nest egg. Apparently, I earned a lot of interest while I was frozen. _A lot_ ,” Rogers said, eyes a little wide. Snapping out of his momentary daze, he looked at Loki and clapped a hand over the one still on his arm. “In any case, thank you.”

Loki pulled his hand away, waving off the thanks. “What use do I have for empty rooms?”

“I don't know,” Rogers said, making Loki regret his choice of words. “You tell me.”

Loki gave Rogers a sullen look, never appreciating the lures sent in his direction to open up his vault of woes. What use was this building full of books and no people? There were no Jotuns here. No judgmental Asgardians. Here, his father didn't slumber and Thor wasn't raging against everyone. Here, Loki was not the wolf in sheep's clothing that everyone thought he was and others desperately wanted him to be. Here, he was Loki; strong, powerful, useful, freed from the expectations of others. Here, his own existence was a delightful question with no convenient answers.

The cost, however, was dear, for he was alone. All the mischief in the universe wasn't enough to fill those hollow spaces in his heart. Destruction, he sometimes thought, might fill those holes. Chaos and destruction. Then he thought of the Frost Giants, he saw himself blue and blood-eyed. He saw himself grey of pallor and hollow faced behind a mirror. He saw himself as every monster imaginable and he heard a child cry somewhere in his memory, “I'm not a monster.”

For every urge he ever had to see this pain-filled universe burn and shatter, he could not bear to be the monster who might start the fire and smash it to pieces. It was a lifelong mantra that ran through his head; _I'm not a monster, I am not a monster._

Loki reached into his pocket and took out his phone, tossing it to Rogers. “No doubt our fearless director will be getting in touch. I'll let you handle it. He likes you.”

Loki gave the room a parting glance and put one foot out of the door, when Rogers called out, “Hey.”

Loki turned half back to arch a brow at Rogers. “Yes?”

Rogers looked hesitant for a moment. Then he smiled and said, “I think I'll take a walk around my new neighbourhood.”

Loki frowned, hearing an invitation somewhere in there. He said, “Enjoy. I think I'll indulge in some light reading.”

Rogers snorted, but because it was him, he did it rather politely. “Sure you will.”

Loki made a noise in his chest, a hum of amusement, and left for his room, certain that behind him Rogers was standing there shaking his head like an old mother hen.

# *

On Asgard, when night fell, you slept. Loki often found himself waking up in chairs or on couches, having fallen asleep reading or writing. He had never slept well as a child and as he grew older, he resented giving up precious time to darkness, unconsciousness and nightmares. He would stay awake deep into the night until he had no choice but to fall asleep. On many an occasion, with his usual tact, Thor would rouse him from his sleep with a loud 'Loki!' or a none too gentle prod, reminding him on waking that he would not be carrying Loki to bed the way their father used to when they were children.

Midgard was not so taxing. It took days before he realised he felt no need to sleep and then weeks before he finally had to lay down, accepting his energy required replenishing. Now with the mirror that stood in the corner of his room, Loki felt even less of a compulsion to sleep. Soon his eyes would look as hollow as those of the other Loki, the one who had disappeared with a look of bright fear. As light dimmed outside and Rogers remained absent, Loki lay across his bed, thinking of the mirror Loki, the Loki of Midgard stories. Thinking of where he fit between them. 

Book still in hand and thoughts cycling through his mind, he had drifted off and slept, waking with a gasp when a crack of thunder seemed to strike right outside one of the windows. Loki pushed himself up on his elbows and looked at one of the windows which was no longer boarded up and showing a swollen moon glowing high up in the black of the sky, behind the pane of glass being battered by angry rain. The sky flashed bright white and too many seconds later there was a whip crack sound that made Loki wonder if someone had torn a hole in the universe, right from the heavens to the ground. 

Loki sat up slowly, swinging his legs off the bed, accidentally dropping his book on the floor, on top of his discarded coat. As he reached for it with a sigh, something flickered at the top of his vision, something straight ahead of him. He remained still, but his eyes turned up towards the mirror in the corner, watching it mist into patterns of gray and red, crackling lines of blue weaving through the fog. Loki sprang to his feet, looking for his cane with its enchanted serpent head. It was leaning up against the wall, just under the window. Loki all but ran to it and grabbed it, just as thunder struck again. He looked into the window, at the rain and the lightning and the reflection of Thor who stood behind him.

Loki twisted around, cane raised to strike, but Thor had already anticipated the move, grabbed Loki's wrist and wrapped an arm around his waist, using his own mass to drive Loki up against the wall next to the window. Loki looked at the cane in his hand, slowly slipping. Thor's crushing grip increased and Loki gasped, the cane falling to the floor with a clatter. His other hand was trapped between his back and the wall, Thor leaning into him hard, keeping him immobile. They stared at each other, Thor's expression blank, the blue of his eyes heavy and clouded. 

Loki let out a sigh, going limp against Thor, his fingers slowly curling even though Thor's grip on his wrist was tight and unyielding. Thor leaned forward, eyes flicking down to Loki's mouth, flicking back to meet his gaze. Thor's head fell forward, resting against Loki's forehead, a sigh escaping his lips, hot breath released across Loki's skin. It almost felt like an accident when Thor's lips pressed half-open against Loki's mouth. Thor let go of Loki's wrist and pulled him away from the wall, freeing his other hand. Both Loki's hands instantly reached up to grab Thor's hair and pull him into a kiss, his mouth insistent and hungry.

Thor had him in a tight hold, his hand climbing up, fingers wrapping in his hair and twisting, pulling Loki's head back. Loki looked at Thor through narrowed eyes, his throat bared. Thor's eyes were full of quiet accusation, sharp wires of hurt running across them as he stared at Loki. He let go of Loki's hair and hoisted him off the floor, turning and walking to the bed. Loki landed on his back, Thor still holding onto him, laid out on top, his knee shoving apart Loki's thighs. 

“So you're angry,” Loki said quietly, his fingers in Thor's hair. 

“You ran away,” Thor said, voice sounding gravelly. “From _me_.”

“I couldn't let you go to Jotunheim,” Loki said, shaking his head. “Father would have –“

Thor slapped a hand over Loki's mouth, his jaw clenching as he took a deep breath. “I have always stood by you, have I not? From when we were children, Loki, I have always been there. You ran when I needed you. Why? Just like a Jotun. Silver-tongued deceivers.”

Loki blinked away the burn in his eyes as he stared up at Thor in shock. Luckily, a surge of anger followed quick close behind and he grabbed at the hand over his mouth, trying to pull it away. He lurched up against Thor, striking out with his fist. A struggle ensued between the two of them, a childish attempt to overpower each other in their tangle of limbs. The air was so heavy, Loki felt sluggish, as if fighting his way out of a sandy marsh. It was all wrong, how uncoordinated he felt as Thor threw him back down and knelt on the insides of Loki's elbows, pinning him down. For once, Loki's strength did not seem to match that of Thor's.

Loki shook his head up at Thor, “We don't have to fight.”

“Fighting seems to be in our destiny,” Thor said quietly, holding out his closed fist above Loki's face. Loki frowned up at it until it opened to reveal a thread, a needle dangling on the end of it, teasing Loki's mouth as it swung back and forth. 

Loki's eyes widened as he stared at the needle. He shook his head and whispered, “Thor, no.”

“This is how it always ends for you,” Thor said quietly and as Loki looked at the window behind Thor's head, the sky seemed to burn and swallow the moon and he could hear the hiss of a viper above him. Thor firmly grabbed him by his hair and held him in place, bringing the needle close. He whispered, “No more Jotun deception.”

The needle pierced his lip and the pain was sharp and hot like fire. He pushed up against Thor hard, toppling him over and sending him off the bed with a flat-footed kick to the stomach. Shaking, he crawled back off the bed, tripping and falling before he could find his feet. He pulled at the thread dangling from the needle still in his lip, yanking it out and dropping it. One hand pressed to his throbbing lip, Loki ran down the stairs in a daze, all the way out into the street where the rain was coming down as if the sky had never known what it was to rain before. Loki scowled up at the skies in confusion.

“Loki.” A hand touched his shoulder lightly and suddenly he felt the cold of the rain, saw the sky with utmost clarity and felt the taste of sleep in his mouth.

He spun around and shoved away the hand on his shoulder, blinking rain out of his eyes and glaring at the shadowy figure until he stepped closer and Loki saw it was Rogers. 

Loki said, “I would advise you not to lay your hands on me, Captain.”

“Okay,” came the very careful reply. “How about you come back inside then? Before someone notices us out here and calls the police.”

Loki frowned, touching his hand to his mouth. His bottom lip was sore and he tasted metal on his tongue. Another strike of thunder made him jolt, looking up at the sky with wide eyes. 

“It's all right. It's just thunder.”

Loki shook his head, looking up at the silvery moon. The clouds around it looked like they were bubbling and the thunder was striking out across the sky in anger. “It's never just thunder.”

“What?” Rogers asked.

Loki pushed past him and ran back up the stairs to his bedchamber. There was his cane up against the wall and his bed showed no sign of struggle. There was no needle or thread to be found on the floor, and the mirror showed only him, drenched to the bone and dripping on the floor, his lip bloody from where he had bitten himself. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, flinching when he heard the sky rumbling, thunder threatening to strike again.

“Loki!” Rogers was calling from downstairs. A moment later Loki heard his footfalls as he ran upstairs. Loki turned to see him walk in, wet and confused. “You all right?”

Loki tried not to look too sullen as he turned his back on Rogers and went to his bed, the nightmarish sluggishness having disappeared from his body. He sat down on the end of the bed with a thump and gave his reflection a resentful glare, eyeing Rogers by the door who stood with a frown denting his features, his hands on his hips. 

“It appears I was having a rather vivid dream,” Loki said. “I suppose I ought to thank you for waking me before I started howling at the moon.”

“Must have been pretty bad,” Rogers said. Loki chose not to respond. These humans with their endless questions, it was tiring. Rogers was quiet too. Loki eyed him in the mirror, saw him nodding, biting his bottom lip before he said, “I'm going to... get out of your hair.”

He watched Rogers turning his back to the room, taking a step to leave. Flatly, Loki said, “I don't sleep well.”

Loki turned his gaze from the mirror as Rogers turned back into the room, listening intently. He nodded at Loki to continue.

“When I was a child, I learnt a truth that has haunted my dreams since. So... I do not sleep well. And now it seems I have new dreams, just as creative. And frightening.”

“That's comforting,” Rogers said quietly. “I'm not sure I trust someone who's not afraid of anything.”

Loki frowned at him, not understanding what there was to trust in someone who was afraid. Who knew what Loki could become if he had nothing to fear? Who knew what pinnacle he could reach? He looked down at the book he had been reading, lying open on the floor. He had fallen asleep reading the same tales for the umpteenth time. The Trickster bound. The Thunderer's noble demise. What cruel fate would lay out the future in front of him like this? 

Rogers had crossed the room and was in front of Loki, picking up the book and shutting it. He held onto it as he sat down on the bed next to Loki. His eyes on the cover, fingers tracing a black tree gnarled and twisted in on itself, Rogers said, “I don't sleep well.”

Loki looked across at Rogers and smiled with amusement. “Of course you don't. What good man sleeps easy?”

Rogers let out an exhalation of a laugh, something coloured with surprise. He shook his head, “I, uh, I dream about people. People I know I'll never see again. People who meant a lot to me. People I... I could have saved. I mean, where's the justice, you know? I get to survive and –“ 

Rogers stopped, looking down at the book in his hands, his expression tight and miserable. Loki said, “The woman in the picture. Did she need saving?”

Rogers smiled, shaking his head. “Not Peggy. She was... she was something else. If I ever tried to save her, I reckon she'd probably punch me in the mouth. Or shoot me. Yeah, that's more like her.”

“The man then,” Loki said. Rogers' smile wilted, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Who was he? Friend? Brother?”

“He was the closest thing I had to a brother,” Rogers said, his thumb stroking the roots of the Yggdrasil tree on the cover of Loki's nightmare book. His fingers curled then and he stilled. “He fell. Suddenly I was... _so_ strong but still not strong enough to save him.”

Loki stared, the tremor in Rogers' voice buzzing inside his brain. Rogers sat beside him, his strength straining against his clothes and here he was undone by the woes of the heart. Quietly, Loki said, “I may be wrong, Captain, but I'll hazard a guess that if your friend knew you at all, he must have known you would have done all that you could to save him.”

Rogers nodded, but told Loki, “Not in my nightmares.”

Loki knew full well that the inventions of his own mind were often more terrifying than anything real. The monsters he feared were all of his own making, even if Asgard was the place where he feared them the most.

“Our nightmares,” Loki said, already feeling the bitter taste of this confession, “are no more than our own self-loathing made manifest. Well, that or the fates treating us as their playthings. In either case, they're best left ignored, don't you agree?”

Rogers turned to smile at Loki, holding up the book as he said, “As a matter of fact, I do agree.”

Loki's brows went up as he looked at the book, mouth opening to object and then shutting again. Licking the sore spot on his lip he nodded and said, “Point taken.”

Rogers looked away, eyes on the book in his hands. Loki turned his gaze to the cane leaning against the wall under the window still being battered by rain. Thunder continued rumbling above them. Loki couldn't help but look up at the ceiling as the sound deepened. 

Next to him, Rogers said, “We're not sleeping tonight, are we?”

Lightening flashed and thunder boomed overhead. Loki nodded. “No. I don't think we are.”


	6. Chapter 6

Barton appeared to be sulking. How wonderful, thought Loki, seeing as he had previously thought the man to be completely unflappable. But here he was sat on the other side of a table in the SHIELD eatery, his arms folded across his chest and a resolutely sulky look on his face. Loki grinned as Rogers caught up with the situation, picking up a small plastic figurine from amongst the debris of their finished breakfast.

“You thought Loki emptied out my quarters and turned me into a little plastic man?” Loki threw his head back and laughed, while Rogers continued to stare at Barton. 

Barton's sulk loosened somewhat. “Okay, it sounds stupid when you put it that way.”

“I think it probably sounds a little stupid any way you put it,” Rogers reasoned as he turned to Loki. “You left this on purpose, didn't you?”

“Yes.” Loki flashed him a pleased grin. “It's good, isn't it?”

“No,” Rogers said. Then he smiled. “But... it _is_ kinda funny.”

Barton refused to find humour in the situation, rolling his eyes. “Has Fury called you and ripped you both a new one yet?”

“You spin words like webs of poetry, Barton,” Loki said. “I'm constantly baffled by how you ended up in such a solitary vocation.”

Barton blinked at Loki and appeared to choose the option of not dignifying Loki's remark with a response. He looked to Rogers for an answer instead. “He called us. He was... well, I –“

“Livid,” Loki supplied. “I believe that's the word for which you are floundering so beautifully, Captain.”

“He was kind of angry,” Rogers agreed. 

“But calmed down considerably when the captain pointed out that he _is_ a free man. Unless by free, Fury means free in the confines of this slab of rock.” The employees at the next table all turned in unison to aim irritated looks at Loki. He gave them a sweet smile and said, “No offence.” 

Barton pointed at Loki and asked Rogers, “You want to play house with smart-mouth here? Seriously? You couldn't just find a nest of vipers to jump into? Run into oncoming traffic?”

“I like the neighbourhood,” Rogers said firmly, placing the plastic man on the table. “It's a real place with real people instead of uniforms I don't recognise and technology I don't understand. It actually feels like something I used to know.”

“Also, we have quite a few pretty faces circling our nest since the captain made an appearance,” Loki commented. “Makes a wonderful change from the dreary death masks in this place.”

A man at the next table turned towards Loki and said, “ _Dude_ , seriously. We're like sitting right here.”

“He's an ass,” Barton told the young man. “Eat your breakfast.”

Loki laughed quietly and asked Barton, “Tell me, is our fearless director to return or has he taken up with the man of iron?”

Barton shrugged. “How the hell should I know? This one's not my gig.”

Loki looked at Rogers who explained, “He's not a part of this mission.”

Looking back at Barton he asked, “Because of your cheerful demeanour?”

“Fury picks who he wants for what he wants,” Barton said. “I'm fine with that.”

“Yes, pointing and shooting as directed, without question and with utmost loyalty,” Loki said. “You are a good little soldier, aren't you?”

Barton's smile was dangerous, or would have been if Loki felt threatened by it. “You're mistaking following orders for shooting in the dark. You're probably more used to giving orders and making arbitrary rules for others to follow, right? God boy?”

Loki tilted his head at Barton thoughtfully, thinking of Odin high up on his throne, all commanding, all demanding. Arbitrary? Surely not. “Quite.”

As Barton and Loki gazed at each other, both trying to glimpse deeper than the surface would allow, Rogers nodded to the next table and said, “Next time I'm eating with those guys.”

# *

Loki slipped away after breakfast, while Rogers and Barton were engaged in a conversation about words Rogers didn't understand and Loki did not care about. He then quite _astonishingly_ found himself lost in a SHIELD laboratory. _Again_. He then _accidentally_ found his cane resting harmlessly and innocently against a computer terminal as he made small talk with a young impressionable SHIELD operative.

It was true that he could be accused of tilting his head a certain way and smiling a certain charming smile as he smoothly and most sincerely said, “Why, Agent Perkins, that's fascinating. I do wish we could continue this conversation, but I can see Agent Barton glaring at me from the corridor. He's the jealous type. Doesn't like me talking to other agents.”

Perkins turned about and scowled at the window into the corridor, on the other side of which Barton stood with narrow-eyed focus. Perkins turned back around, pushing his glasses up his nose with a sniff. “Tell me about it, guy's a jerk.”

Loki smiled, snapping up his cane and tapping Perkins' shoulder with one end. “Good talk, Agent Perkins, let's do it again. Preferably when Barton's not about.”

Perkins nodded, giving Loki a pleased grin. “Sure thing, Loki.”

Loki waved goodbye with his cane and strode out into the corridor where Barton instantly said, “What the hell was that?”

Loki stopped in his tracks, as if attacked unfairly. “I'm sorry?”

Barton pointed at the window, on the other side of which Perkins was aiming a particularly scathing look in Barton's direction. Barton noticed it and drew his finger back. He tilted his head in the direction of the window and said, “ _That_.”

“I was just catching up with Perkins. He doesn't seem to like you very much,” Loki said thoughtfully. “What did you do?”

Barton stared at Loki. “What? Nothing! Why? What did he say?”

“I couldn't say. It would be a betrayal of his confidence,” Loki said solemnly. He clapped a hand on Barton's shoulder. “Though, you could try being a little more amiable. He's a good man who knows a great deal about lizards. Avengers material.”

Barton smacked Loki's hand away. “You said that about the guy who served you coffee yesterday.”

“It was good coffee,” Loki said with an approving nod. “Now, was there anything else, Agent Barton? I have quite a bit of business to attend to today and as much as I'd like to stay here and talk, time's a-wasting.”

“I hope whatever you were doing in that lab has nothing to do with this business. SHIELD's not your personal party planner,” Barton said. 

“I wouldn't dream of abusing SHIELD's resources,” Loki said with a smile, one that received a look that could curdle milk in a cow's udders. Loki told himself that was a question worth asking Barton some time in the 'is that one of your delightfully _super_ powers?' category. “Will that be all?”

Barton gave him a bored look which seemed to suggest to Loki, there would never be an instant of _that_ being _all_. Loki smiled and turned to leave. As he did, he glanced back at Barton, finding him standing there in the middle of the corridor, looking into the lab Loki had been visiting. He seemed half present. Loki thought he looked quite like a celestial body thrown from its orbit. One of twin stars, drifting aimlessly. 

He quietly returned to Barton's side. “I take it you've heard nothing from Agent Romanoff.”

Barton twisted about to scowl up at Loki. With a customary look of distrust, one reserved especially for Loki, Barton said, “She and Coulson are only reporting to Fury until the job's done.”

“And what exactly is _her_ job on this mission?”

Barton snorted, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “If I know Tasha, being a one woman army.”

“Agent Barton, you're positively glowing with pride,” Loki said. “Mind you, a good assassin is indeed something in which one should take pride.”

“Or a good friend?” Barton asked, brows raised at Loki. Then he frowned, feigning deep thought, as if he was capable of such a thing. “Yeah. You don't look like the kind of person who would know anything about that.”

“Oooh.” Loki tapped his cane against his own chest. “Why, Clint, what marksmanship. Straight through the heart. Makes a change.”

Barton let out a huff, as ever unimpressed by Loki's words. “Good to know you have a heart. Now how about you run along and take care of your _business_? Oh and do me a favour? Try not to break Rogers. People like him.”

Barton strode off, stiff and square shouldered as usual, carrying a body of lies. It was glaringly obvious that he missed Romanoff at his side. It was himself he comforted by calling her an army, no matter how efficient she was at handing Barton his posterior on a silver platter when they sparred. Loki could easily see, if Romanoff was here instead of Barton, she would be pacing the corridors with that same tight look about her eyes. These destroyers of Fury's, these killing machines, they had terribly human hearts. He wondered, for the briefest moment, what would it take these two friendly assassins to turn on each other? Something not of this world, he surmised, with a strange pang of envy.

# *

Feet propped up on the edge of his bed, legs crossed at his ankles and head resting against the high back of his armchair, Loki sat with his eyes closed and hands loosely curled around the ends of the chair's armrests. He was listening to a barely noticeable buzz, just off to his right. The sound of magic at work. Loki felt he could easily be in Asgard right now, locked away in his chambers, emptying books of their secrets, unravelling the inner workings of magic spells and weapons until they worked on a simple utterance, at the click of a finger. Until magic threaded through his fingers, desperate for him to make it sing and dance.

If this was Asgard, Loki further considered, Thor would be here. He would be striding into the room like he not only owned it, but as if he had built Asgard with his bare hands. Utterly shameless, his tunic would be half-way across the room, thrown whether it flew onto a couch, a table or into the fireplace. He would stand to fill Loki's view with Thor and nothing but Thor. If Loki's eyes happened to be closed, he would place his hands on top of Loki's and lean close enough for Loki to feel that stupid smile of his. Loki would open his eyes, a narrow-eyed glare at being forever interrupted by the heir of Asgard. 

Once, Thor had laughed and said, ever so smugly, “Why look so sour? I can leave, you know. You just have to say the word.”

Loki's hands had tightened around the ends of the armrests. Of course he wasn't going to send Thor away, and Thor knew it, the insufferable son of Odin that he was. Loki had smiled and said, “Who am I to tell the heir to the throne what he can and can't do?”

That reply had done a good job curdling Thor's cheerful disposition. He had straightened up, stepping away from Loki, unable to hide the evidence of hurt from his face. “Poor Loki. What impositions you're made to suffer.”

As Thor took a step to leave Loki grabbed his wrist, stopping him. Thor looked down at Loki, taut-faced. Loki very lightly kissed the back of Thor's hand, his thumb caressing the inside of Thor's wrist. Thor was supposed to react. His hand, limp in Loki's grasp, was meant to come to life with a kiss and reach out to stroke Loki's jaw, the way it had many times. Instead, Thor just stood there, anger remaining in his darkened gaze, as if today he really wanted to see where this particular game ended, refusing to be charmed. Loki brought Thor's hand to his cheek, forcing him to cup his face.

“You're supposed to forgive me,” Loki said, without an atom of apology in his tone.

Thor's hand moved now, pushing Loki's chin up hard, forcing eyes gazes to meet. “Am I? Why is that?”

Loki shrugged. “If you don't forgive the ones you love, then who _do_ you forgive?”

“Silvertongue.” Thor's hand moved to stroke Loki's cheek, two fingers sliding all the way to the corner of his mouth. Thor smiled, but it fell short of his wounded eyes. He pulled his hand away. “Pity it's more often sour than it is sweet.”

Off he went, without his tunic. That had looked grand, Thor Odinson storming out of Loki's chambers half-dressed. As If the halls of the palace weren't filled with enough rumours, now the rumourmongers could add the future king and his consort's relationship woes to common tavern-table talk. Loki slumped back in his armchair and cursed everyone from the gods to the dead. Then he cursed himself.

Day turned to night and still Thor hadn't returned. As the lamps dimmed, Loki stalked through the golden corridor that snaked all the way to Thor's chambers, his gait stiff with pride. He wore a simple long coat, black with the discreetest of golden threading, and beneath it a light black silken tunic over simple velvet breeches tucked into his black boots. Loki was aware that aesthetically pleasing dress was perhaps one of the dirtier tricks to make someone forget they were angry, but one simply had to use one's best assets when the occasion called for it. 

Loki entered Thor's chambers, waving off the objections of the guards posted outside who insisted the prince had commanded that none should disturb him. Loki snorted at the mere idea that he was expected to obey any such command. He strode in, all the way up to the back of the chair in which Thor was seated, watching the flames of the fireplace. Looking down at the top of Thor's head, he wondered what he could say that wouldn't be ruined by that supposedly sour silver tongue of his. 

Placing his hand on the back of the chair, he walked around it slowly, stopping in front of Thor to regard him with an admonishing look. “Are you quite done with your sulk? Only, tongues are beginning to wag.”

“Tongues are always wagging,” Thor said, lifting his foot up and using it to shove Loki aside. “You're blocking the fire.”

Loki looked at Thor with half a smile, which he knew to look anything but amused, and walked away, only to have his wrist caught by Thor. He came to a hard stop, turning his head to glare down at Thor. “What?”

“Sore loser,” Thor said quietly. “And my words were nowhere as cutting as yours. Why must you test me so?”

“You, heir and son of Asgard, have the love and loyalty of countless whether you want it or not. Arrogant and reckless as you are,” Loki said, pausing to loathe himself a little for the admission. “You are all I have.”

“And you do all you can to push me away!” Thor gave an incredulous laugh.

Loki shrugged, smiling a little, though Thor wouldn't find this amusing at all. “I'm curious as to whether you'll push back or not, or if you'll walk away and not return.”

Thor was shaking his head, stilling quietly laughing. “And what happens when I don't return?”

“You'll just break my poor little heart of course and I'll have to go make mischief to mourn our parting.” Loki grinned down at him. “That or I suppose I'll have to come to you and demand forgiveness.”

Thor stood up, his hand sliding down from Loki's wrist to his hand as Loki turned to face him, leaving them eye to eye. Thor was frowning at Loki, his eyes looking as though he was trying so hard to penetrate Loki's mind. “You frighten me with your madness sometimes.”

Loki smiled. “And yet, here we are.”

Thor touched the flat of his thumb to Loki's bottom lip, pulling at it. “Here we are.”

Thor leaned in for a kiss, stopped by Loki's hand against his chest. Loki pushed him back slightly and asked, “Forgiven?”

Thor rolled his eyes, snorting at the question. “You know you always will be. Spoiled son of the gods that you are.”

Loki grinned, pulling Thor to him and straight into a kiss. They kissed the way they always did, as if it was their first kiss, tentative and careful and then as if it might be their last, full of hunger and possession. It took very little time before Loki's sharp mind became clouded by the presence of Thor's hands, the way his touch made Loki's skin flush and burn. Somewhere in the back of his head he was aware of his coat being stripped from him and thrown down in front of the fireplace.

Some time later he protested half-heartedly when it occurred to him that he and Thor were half-naked and rutting on top of a very fine piece of tailoring, but then Thor was moving down his body, his bristly beard scraping on skin and eliciting uncouth gasps from Loki as he squeezed his eyes shut and fisted his hand in Thor's hair, full of frustration and demand. When Thor finally took Loki into the heat of his mouth, the fine tailoring of the coat had become a rather moot point.

Feeling sullen, Loki opened his eyes and thought, that was a _very_ fine coat made unusable. God seed or not, that coat was only fit for burning. Then sighing, he thought maybe it wasn't the coat he was feeling so sullen about. 

“You look terrible,” Rogers said, striding into Loki's room as if it were his own. Damn these Midgardians. Loki wanted to stand and point out that he, Prince of Asgard, was as powerful and violent as a storm and was to be treated with caution and respect. “You okay?”

“I have known better days.” So much for a powerful and violent storm. He looked at the paper bag in his hand and pointed a finger in its direction, his hand not leaving the comfort of the armrest. “What's that?”

“Your acquaintance Joey left it for you,” Rogers said, dropping the bag in Loki's lap before shoving his feet to the ground and making himself comfortable on the bed.

Loki looked into the bag. “And just like that, my day has brightened. You're quite the bearer of good tidings, aren't you?”

“What's with your mirror?” Rogers asked, face scrunching up with curiosity as he looked at Loki's cane which lay on the floor, its serpent head spewing forth a mist of green which hit the black swirling fog in the mirror, causing crisp runes to scroll downwards.

“Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about,” Loki said absently, sifting through the contents of the bag. “That Joey is much more resourceful than I give him credit for.”

“Let me guess. Avengers material,” Rogers said flatly. “And my pretty little head _is_ worried. What are you up to?”

Loki let out a breath of exasperation. “You know, quite often, you do make me regret not marrying. You're as tiresome as the nag I ran away from.”

“If something insane is about to walk through that thing, I'd like to know.” Rogers gave him a very patient look, pointing at the mirror. Then he frowned and said, “Wait, what? Holy – did you run away from your wedding? Is _that_ what you're doing here?”

Loki dropped the bag on the floor and stood up. “The mirror, you say.”

“What did you do?” Rogers asked, standing with him and already looking disappointed in Loki, as if what he thought mattered. “Leave someone standing at the altar?”

“I wouldn't expect you to understand,” Loki replied curtly. “I come from destroyers of worlds, Captain, death and destruction is my unfortunate heritage. Had I stayed, my betrothed and I would have done something regrettable. I left because better he come after me with all his anger and rage than destroy the peace his father worked to preserve. Better that he remain his father's good son. I have no qualms about being the unworthy runaway consort.”

Rogers was blinking at Loki, evidently surprised. Loki laughed, quiet and bitter, turning to look at the mirror. “Ill-willed Loki in his shoes with which he runs through air and over water. Chased by dwarves and needles. Caught by the mighty Thor.”

The room was silent for a long time during which Loki kept his eyes on the flashes of green runes as they travelled down the mirror, mapping pathways between what these humans called science and what Loki knew as infantile magic. 

“I thought you were going to stop reading that book,” Rogers finally said, clearing his throat.

“It described me as beautiful and comely to look upon. Of course, I suspect the author finds ingenious methods of fixing that,” Loki said, somewhat morosely. Rogers gave him a strange subdued smile. He looked as out of place with the world as he had the first time Loki had met him. “What troubles you? Tell me. You're not one to shy away from the truth.”

Rogers scratched his cheek, eyes turning inwards in thought. When he looked at Loki, there was just a touch of deception in his eyes. “I guess I just keep forgetting you're not human. That you're... different.”

Loki straightened up and said, “You'll just have to become accustomed to me as I have become accustomed to you then. I'm afraid I am neither willing nor able to change _just_ to ease your discomfort.”

Rogers smiled, genuine and amused. “I'm not sure I want you to.”

Loki snorted. “You mean, you're not taking me to task over not fulfilling my nuptial obligations?”

“I mean... I've got nothing to say to a fella who hurts himself just to stop someone else from doing something terrible,” Rogers said, shutting Loki's mouth which was already preparing to mock, deride or laugh. Whatever look was on Loki's face, it made Roger's eyes soft with sympathy. “You really don't like yourself very much, do you?”

Loki could have laughed. He didn't, but he could have. There was a supreme difference between recognising the monster he harboured within himself and hating himself. Whatever wonderful insight Rogers thought he had, well, he was wrong. 

"You do go on,” Loki said and turned away from Rogers, nodding towards the mirror. “This is some of the information kept inside SHIELD's systems. Information from all of Fury's eyes and ears.”

When Rogers didn't immediately respond, Loki turned slightly to see him looking baffled. “You broke into SHIELD's files?”

Loki pulled a face. “I'd say pried open the lid to have small peek.”

“Why?” Rogers asked, not looking too thrilled. “I can't imagine you using this for any purpose other than –“

“A nefarious one?” Loki asked, arching a brow at Rogers. 

Rogers gave him a hard stare. “Don't put words in my mouth. You can walk through mirrors. Why would you need this?”

“Why take time hopping on one leg, when you can be swifter using two?” Loki snapped his fingers and revealed a small white card from between them, holding it out to Rogers. Rogers took the card from Loki as if he was expecting it to explode. His eyes moved over the curving inky lettering and a moment later his expression went slack. 

“This is... is this Peggy's address?” Rogers swallowed. “I thought she was –“

“Dead? She's not.” Rogers had paled and was gripping the card so hard the tip of his thumb looked white. This was not the gratitude filled response Loki had expected. “You're not happy.”

“I just... I was going to ask Fury.” Rogers' eyes had become bright, darting from the card to corners of the room as if he was trying to follow every thought in his head. “I need some air.”

Loki stood there watching Rogers all but run from the room. He returned to his armchair, eyes on the doorway through which Rogers had left, musing that there was an abundance of air in the room. Leaning back and stretching his legs out in front of him, Loki linked his hands together over his stomach, turning his gaze to the mirror. 

_Seek him out if he is here,_ Loki commanded with his Aesir tongue. _The heir and son, find him._

# *

The runes were still sliding down the mirror. Loki had run the enchantment several times now, just to be certain. None of Loki's enchantments had been able to find Thor in those looking machines of Midgard. Perhaps he was still on Asgard, or on Jotunheim, tearing it asunder, while Loki sat here unforgiven. He smiled to himself, mouth feeling tight as he sat there wondering, what _did_ he have to do to get Thor's attention anyway? Jaw clenched, smile vanishing, Loki glanced down at the floor and the bag of supplies Joey had sent him.

Opening his palm, Loki whispered Aesir words and his cane disappeared from the floor and appeared in his hand. Loki snatched up the bag and rose to his feet before he could change his mind, taking the few steps to the mirror which reflected his – he frowned and was alarmed to see –a rather human reflection. His hair was not as smooth and immaculate as he was prone to keeping it. The long black coat, its collars turned up, was free of Asgardian splendour. The clothes beneath, black and functional were nondescript, his boots made of black and warm leather. 

He glared at this Loki in the mirror. Was it his curse to become part of whatever world his feet touched? How long could he stand on Jotunheim before its earth would eat up the pale of his skin and have him look just like _them_? He frowned, wondering why he hadn't already whispered words to cast a glamour over this dour look, embellishing it with golds and embroidery, rich and majestic. Surely, it should have grated more to appear so human, considering what terribly broken and inefficient machines they were. Even good news seemed to jam the cogs in their brain.

Shaking his head free of pointless thoughts, Loki stood the cane on the floor, where it remained standing when he released it from his grasp. He emptied out the contents of the bag onto his hand; a cube of heavy indestructible metal, some precious crystals, a cube of gold and night black rock. He took the rock and whispered runes onto its surface and then did the same with the gold. Then with the crystals and finally, with the metal. When he held them together, he could feel them speaking to each other, building their bonds. 

The objects floated up out of his palm, orbiting an invisible body, circling round and round. _An indestructible doorway_ , Loki whispered, _a pocket of space_ and _a bridge back to Midgard_. Loki's cane flew up into his hand and he pointed the serpent head at the mirror. The metal and gold disappeared from the air and the frame of the mirror suddenly glimmered bright with a golden sheen. The crystals disappeared and the surface of the mirror became crisp clear and bright. Finally, the rock disappeared, reappearing as a black and metallic a ring around his finger. 

Loki whispered for a pocket of space and whispered for the spectre, he who cracked this mirror and he who found Loki. The mirror shone blindingly bright, its light filling the room. When it receded, it left Loki in a dark cave, his only company that spectre who had called to him from the other side of his mirror. There was a small pool of glittering water that separated them, keeping them apart in the circular cave, which had no way in and no way out. They were both lit by the glow of the pool, a green mist curled around Loki's arm, emanating from the cane, and a blue glow casting an eerie shadow on the spectre from his spear.

He looked bewildered, his eyes wildly searching the cave before resting on Loki from hollow dark sockets. His hair was longer than when Loki had seen it last and had a wet greasy look about it, his clothes looking weathered and beaten. In his hand he was gripping a short golden spear. He stood tilting his head in a strange birdlike gesture as Loki stood there straight and rigid, glad for the water between them.

“What is this place?” The spectre's voice sounded raw, brittle. His eyes kept darting in the direction of the strange shuffling and flapping sounds of the cave and shadows which seemed to dart from rock to rock, sliding across the walls. 

“A space outside of our realities,” Loki answered. “Out side of time.”

“From where I cannot cross into your reality and you cannot get trapped in mine. How clever.” The spectre's eyes glittered, reflecting the pool between them, right down to the strange dark curling shapes that swam within in it. He looked Loki up and down and said, “It appears the All-Father has been generous with his knowledge. Did he mention these spaces outside of our realities hold the darkest and most dangerous things? They make wonderful prisons.”

“He taught me to employ caution,” Loki replied, his cane sending out a green glow. “I made sure to do so.”

The spectre was laughing. “Is that so? Tell me, what other wisdom has Odin imparted to you?”

Loki shrugged. “You tell me. You seem to know a lot about my father.”

“Your _father_? Are you quite sure about that? Your father, mother and _brother_ , may not be what you think they are. _You_ are certainly not what you think you are.”

“You mean a Frost Giant?” Loki asked, fast asking himself why he had wanted to see this strange twisted version of himself. “I've known since I was a boy.”

“I'm surprised the mighty Odin didn't protect you from such a harsh truth,” the spectre said with something close to contempt. “Caring father that he is.”

“My mother thought it best I be told,” Loki answered, not sure of what to make of the way the spectre's eyes blazed with such anger at the mention of Odin. “Why do you care?”

The spectre's mouth thinned out in an unhappy smile. “I am intrigued by how the fates wind and unwind their threads in such curious and cruel ways. Why have you brought me here?”

“To ask why you've been haunting my reflections,” Loki said. “Why did _you_ seek me out?”

The spectre walked closer to the edge of the pool, eyes following the dark shapes swimming inside it. “I was searching for a place to rest. To think. I saw you in my mirror and thought perhaps I had found a brother, a _real_ brother. I sought to guide you before they turn on you, before the Asgardians toss you aside as they did with me. ”

The darkening of another passing shadow made them both turn in the same direction, Loki spun his cane in his hand, aiming to strike while the spectre lifted his spear. On the realisation that it was a mere shadow, he straightened and started to laugh while Loki relaxed his grip on the cane.

“Don't be frightened,” the spectre said with a grin. “Just moths from the black attracted to other-worldly flames.”

Loki ignored the comment, his eyes once again looking over the spectre's attire. It had seen better days. As for the spectre, he looked like an animal who had spent too long in a cage and now distrusted its own freedom. He looked, perhaps, as though he had indeed been tossed aside.

“Did Odin do this to you?” Loki asked, his heart sinking even as he asked. He couldn't believe it. He was Loki. He was always forgiven, wasn't he? “He sent you away?”

“Our dear father, hid from me the truth of my origin,” the spectre answered. “He chose his reckless son for the throne. And when I did what none of them had the guts to do, when _I_ set about destroying Jotunheim, they... they let me go. They just let me go.” 

The spectre stilled, his eyes turning to the pool as if he stood watching his memories even now, all of them playing out in front of blind-looking eyes. Loki swallowed, his mouth going dry at the thought of Jotunheim, destroyed at his hands. How many Lokis in how many realities had succeeded? How many of them had become the monsters they despised? How many times had Loki wanted just that? Jotunheim gone forever.

“Go back,” Loki said. “You'll be forgiven.”

The spectre's eyes slowly turned to look at Loki. “You think I need forgiveness?”

“You're his son. He will never turn you away.”

The spectre nodded. “I _will_ return to Asgard. As king. And I will have Thor shackled, kneeling at my feet _when_ I am king.”

Loki stared and his visible confusion appeared to intrigue the spectre who pointed his spear at Loki and asked, “Look at you. You won't hear a word against him. Did you forget? He's not your brother and no matter how much you may love him, he will never have you stand shoulder to shoulder as his equal.”

Loki eyed the spear pointed in his direction whilst letting his cane slide through his fingers, until he held it by the end, energy crackling at the serpent head's mouth, drawing dark flickers towards its tongue. Loki pointed the head at the spectre. “As his consort, that is exactly where I plan to stand.”

“Consort,” the spectre whispered after a long stunned silence. His face was blank for a moment, eyes vacant. Then his expression twisted and Loki couldn't tell if it was pain or disgust that caused his eyes to brighten and the corner of his mouth to curl up. His smile was a sharp fearsome thing. “Is that how they tamed you? You've been... _rutted_ into submission?”

Anyone else and Loki would have cut out their tongue, but here he stood insulted by himself. “I take it you don't approve of rutting.”

The spectre swallowed, mouth clamped shut around something distasteful. Then within one blink and the next, his face looked as if it might crack and all the brightness behind those angry eyes might just flood out and drown them both. Sounding as if he had no breath to spare, he asked, “Why aren't you angry?”

_You are my son, Loki. You are **my** son._

With a gentleness Loki didn't expect from himself, he told the spectre, “I have no cause to be angry.”

The spectre tilted his head at Loki, a tear sliding from the corner of his eye. “Yes, you seem... cherished. I hope they will mourn you adequately.”

The spectre struck the bottom of his spear on the ground and its crystal shone blindingly bright. Before Loki could feel the hit, his silver serpent head snapped forward and sent out a golden green blast. Both the spectre and Loki's efforts met in the middle, leaving Loki wide-eyed with shock at the impact, the spectre grinning, eyes gleaming. Loki brought up his hand and uttered over his ring words which would return him swiftly home. The spectre went flying, yanked back to where he came from, screaming in frustration as he went. Loki went hurtling backwards, dark shadows filling his view, reaching for the serpent-head with charcoal fingers. 

He landed on his back, skidding across the floor and stopping just by his bed, his cane rolling away from his hand. Loki lay still for the longest time, tasting blood in his mouth, bones feeling brittle and muscles aching. The mere act of curling onto his side sent a wave of pain and nausea through him. He blearily registered the mirror in front of him, shining innocently and showing him a strange reflection. In front of him on the floor, his cane was shaking and curling up. It shimmered, silver head slowly lifting and hissing, flicking its tongue to taste the air. Across its black body, the odd golden scale shone bright. Loki's fingers helplessly uncurled to reach for it, but it slithered away, casting a long shadow, which Loki watched until his eyes drifted shut and everything went black.


	7. Chapter 7

Loki was aware he was dreaming, flying through a jumble of memories that were whisper thin in some places and sharp as a blade in others. He was running, he was laughing, he was tussling with Thor, they were falling, rolling, fighting, over and over. The sky was bright, stars shining too harsh today, the air not clear and crisp enough and Thor was lapping it up, hair like gold, skin shining with sweat as he threw a pigskin into his rabble of friends. Loki was retreating from them, the heat getting under his skin too much. 

He could hear Thor calling him back into the game, but he was already lying on his back, shaking his head in refusal and closing his eyes, hearing Thor's friends laugh amongst themselves. He felt hands on him then, touching his face, slapping his cheeks. No matter how many times Thor asked him what the matter was, he simply couldn't open his eyes or move his mouth. He felt as though someone had strapped him to a furnace and the air in his lungs was turning to steam. 

Someone carried him, slung over their shoulder like a hunter's prize. The cool innards of Asgard provided some relief, but in no time, he began to burn again. Stripped of clothes and lying under the mist of the healing bed, all Loki could feel was heat. His dreams were of fire. People spoke with the sound of flickering flames. Touches meant to soothe made him whimper. 

He could hear questions, words sounding like they were trapped in bubbles, sometimes clear, sometimes muffled. His mother's voice asking what was wrong. Thor being sent away, his protests a receding echo. His father uttering a single word. “Loki.”

Loki was sure of it, he was dying. He had certainly thought it. Perhaps he had said it too in his delirium. Something had made his mother cry and someone had smoothed back his hair, holding his hand tight. It would have been comforting if it didn't feel as though the heat was cutting into him and burning him from inside out. On it went like that. Fading into blackness, waking into heat. 

Then all of a sudden, relief. Loki drifted into this memory, long buried, purposefully forgotten. A memory of his mother protesting, refusing something. A memory of his father growling that the doors be kept shut, everyone be kept out. A memory of a large hand resting square on his chest and then within seconds a waterfall of air in his lungs. Loki remembered that breath, that heaving greedy breath. The way his skin cooled all the way out from his chest. That sudden respite as his body learned something new. 

He wanted to reach for Odin, but couldn't, feeling as heavy as a rock. All he could manage was the barely audible whisper, “Father.”

“Yes,” he heard the reply over his face, a deep reverberating sound that did not belong to Odin. He forced his eyes open just a crack, finding the sharp ridges of Laufey's face and his shining red eyes.

Loki gasped, sitting up sharply, his fingers like claws, digging into the soft fur bed-covering. He frowned, looking down at the short fur, a rich brown syrupy colour. He was in the healing room, but... not. He was dressed in his princely attire lying on the bed in the large golden chamber, empty of people with the exception of one eagle-eyed Asgardian who stood at the foot of his bed.

Loki gave him a look and muttered, “Damn.”

Heimdall tilted his head as his golden eyes narrowed. “You're becoming a little too old for trickery, Prince Loki.”

Loki thought it over, swinging his legs off the bed and standing to face Heimdall. “Come now, I know you find it impish and adorable.”

Heimdall's narrow-eyed look remained sharp and unimpressed. “You cannot remain veiled for long.”

Loki grinned and said, “I think you'll find that I can. Even now, in my somewhat compromised state, you can't get further than this room, can you? No, you can't. And neither will you be able to because –”

“You've been learning to hide from monsters since you were a child,” Heimdall said. “I know.”

Loki stopped short, snapping his mouth shut, glaring. “You disappoint me. I never thought you so unimaginative that you would rely on such pithy observations.”

Heimdall took a step forward. Loki took one back, maintaining the space between them. Heimdall sighed and seemed to decide on remaining rooted to the spot where he stood. In a voice he might have used to reason with a child, he cajoled, “Loki.”

“You're a wily old thing, Heimdall, and I won't be falling for it,” Loki said.

“If you are injured –“

“I'll heal just fine. My body remembers how,” Loki said. He swallowed and added, “No laying of hands required. Time to go.”

“You won't even ask after Odin or Thor?” Heimdall said.

Odin was the powerful All-Father, from whom nothing could be veiled and Thor knew enough magic of the runes that he would find Loki when and if he really wanted to. Loki said, “Give Mother my love.”

Within one blink and the next, he was awake and sitting up in bed. The narrow mirror in the corner of the room showed him looking as pale as the ridiculous white shirt he was wearing. Except... he turned his face slightly and trailed his fingers down the left side of his face, all the way down his neck where there was a blue tinge. His hand too. When he turned his face fully towards the mirror, he saw that one of his eyes looked tinged with red. He stared at his reflection, watching it glare back as if it was looking into the eyes of an enemy.

“It's not so bad. Few days ago you were all blue.” Loki turned his head to look at the occupant of the bedside chair. Her long locks looking even more crimson than usual, Romanoff sat there watching him, completely expressionless as was her way. Loki turned his gaze from her to the sheets of his narrow bed, coarse and ugly. “You look upset.”

Well done, mistress of robots, Loki thought as he took a look at the exquisite décor of the room. Clearly he was in the SHIELD infirmary, a place which really excelled in extending the drab white cold concrete motif. Even the Jotuns had better aesthetics. “How long have I been here?”

“Little over a week,” Romanoff said.

Loki nodded, avoiding her eyes which he knew were refusing to move from him, like a vulture picking at bones for the smallest morsel. “I don't remember.”

“Not surprised,” she said. “Your fever's been running so high your brain should be mush right now.”

Loki fell back on the bed, blinking up at the boring white ceiling. He wasn't entirely sure how anyone could be expected to heal in this tiny white room, this concrete tomb. “It's certainly feels as though it's seen better days.”

“I thought gods weren't supposed to get sick,” Romanoff said. When he looked at her, she had slouched down in the chair and stretched her legs out in front of her, her hands linked over her stomach.

“Gods don't get sick,” Loki said. “They are instead ailed by mysterious exotic conditions that do not befall humans.”

Romanoff was quiet for a very long time before she said, “So you _do_ get sick.”

“It would seem so,” Loki said flatly. “Why are you here?”

“You talk in your sleep. It's entertaining.” Romanoff leaned forward to reach for something by Loki's feet, picking up a small stack of bound pages. “I have magazines for when you're not talking.”

“Time to replace a few cogs, is it?” Loki said with a snort as he eyed the magazines. Romanoff smiled, amused by the barb. Clearly Loki wasn't looking his impressive and fearsome self under the drab sheets and clothing. “You're back from your mission. Do we have a man of iron at our disposal now?”

“ _We_? I thought you were undecided about becoming a part of we,” Romanoff said, turning the page of her topmost magazine. 

Loki bit his lip in thought. If he wasn't a part of something, then he was just as adrift as that spectre, striking out even at the shadows of those he hated. “Undecided means undecided, Agent Romanoff. It doesn't mean opposed.”

Romanoff glanced up from the magazine, giving him a look which was probably as surprised as she could manage. Not very. “Good to hear.”

Loki watched her, seeking out the small signs of deception that Romanoff kept to a brilliant minimum. “Is it?”

“Better than hearing you've decided to become a bigger ass,” she said with a nod. “Also, Clint'll be over the moon.”

Loki had no choice but to grin. “And where is the wonderful Hawkeye? I would have expected him to be at my bedside, inconsolable and wailing with grief.”

Romanoff rolled her eyes and told Loki, “He's in New Mexico with Coulson.”

“What's in New Mexico?” Loki asked. “More men of iron?”

“According to Fury,” Romanoff said. “Probably nothing. Just some space debris that falls under 'relevant to the interests of SHIELD'.”

Loki arched a brow. “Rocks not of Midgard. How exciting.”

Romanoff tossed him a magazine. “No more talking. Read. Eat some grapes.”

Loki made a face of disgust at the grapes on the bedside table, which were of the saddest green colour. He would have protested about the magazine too, but on opening it he found it filled with vibrant colour and the beauties of Midgard, all slender frames in delicate slips of cloth. “Don't you have any entertainment on this world that isn't make believe?”

Romanoff looked up and frowned. Then she grinned at him. It was a pleasant look.

# *

Fury made an appearance later that day, just as Loki had dressed himself in SHIELD attire, his own clothes apparently too scorched for wearing. He stepped in front of the mirror, giving himself a pained look and waved a hand across his chest, summoning something more tasteful over the clothes, but the simple enchantment left him feeling heated and giddy. He immediately ceased his efforts, none too fond of this particular affliction, and took a step back to sit on the edge of the bed.

Fury chose that moment to walk in and announce, “You look like hell. How about a drink?”

Fury had an office with a window taking up the space of a whole wall, looking out into a large control room filled with computers, large screens, operators and a variety of people, some of whom were clearly pretending to work. Fury's desk was a large wooden thing with a computer and a phone on it. There were some shelves of books, a television and other electrical devices Loki had either not encountered or mastered. The floor was tiled, covered in squares of course gray carpet, the walls a slightly lighter shade.

Loki was finishing his tale, as ever only providing Fury with so much information. What use would it be to him to know there was a Loki somewhere who loathed the ones who loved him so much, he would hurt them across universes? Loki returned his gaze from the uninspiring décor to Fury who was sitting on the edge of the desk rather than behind it, finishing off the whiskey in his glass. 

Placing the glass on the desk, Fury looked down at Loki, half-smiling and half-frowning. “Heat sickness. You're trying to tell me you had heatstroke? I think I'm going need a little more than that.”

“I thought you liked short stories.”

“Short stories are one thing, son, but it looks to me like you're giving me the hundred and forty characters version,” Fury said. Loki filed that comment away for later. “Now, how about you tell me what the hell you did to put you on your ass for this long?”

Loki sighed, waving a hand. “I might have overextended myself trying to marry your technology to my magic. There was a small –“

“Let me guess, complication?” Fury asked flatly.

“I was going to say explosion,” Loki said, “But, complication works too.”

Fury shook his head, picking up the bottle and tipping more amber liquid into his empty glass. “What are the chances of this complication making me very angry and revoking my invitation for you to join the Avengers?”

Loki gave him a wide grin. “Oh, I don't think anything could make you _that_ angry.”

“You do not want to test that theory.” Fury scowled, looking incredibly irritated. “You know, a few days ago I thought we had a dead god on our hands.”

Loki looked away from Fury and past the large window, watching the scurry of SHIELD agents. Absently, he said, “Well, I am healed. A long sleep usually does the trick. Now, if you don't mind, I think I'm ready to leave the cheer and merriment of this place.”

Loki got up, reaching past Fury to pick up his filled glass, knocking back the contents in one go. The bitter heat was welcoming, though the alcohol itself was useless. He raised the glass in a toast to Fury and placed it back down. 

“More mirror walking?” Fury asked, a note of warning in the question.

His body still felt like shifting sand and the blue that partially covered one side of his body felt uncomfortable with warmth, aching and itching. Loki mustered a smile and said, “Not on this occasion, no. I'm feeling like a little change as it happens.”

# *

Romanoff's vehicle was a small compact red thing that flew under her control. She had removed the roof of the carriage, pushing it right back and drove with the wind whipping both her and Loki's hair back. He saw a side of Midgard he didn't see much. The concrete seemed to be eating up most of the world. One day they would have towers as high as those on Asgard, perhaps as golden too. Finally they would build their bridges to the other realms and join in the madness on the tree of life. 

The city of New York was part way there to becoming a minor Asgard, except for when they drove through the less clean streets, the ones that were more gray and grimy, not with filth, but rather a feeling, a sense of darkness. Loki looked close into the nooks and crannies of these streets, watching out for the ingenious who had no towers, but had lofty dreams all the same. Those who would escape their fates hoping to becomes kings. 

“Loki,” Romanoff said, her tone suggesting it wasn't the first time she had called out his name. He looked around and found they were across the street from the library. She nodded and said, “You're home.”

Loki looked at the square lump of rock that was his so-called home. Some of the shrubbery outside it was missing, cut down and away. Loki got out of the car. “I see Captain Rogers has been busy.”

“You have no idea,” Romanoff said.

As Loki walked off. He was vaguely aware of a cocky voice calling Romanoff 'baby' and telling her that she had a sweet ride. Loki rolled his eyes and walked on, not surprised at all by the wet sounding slap, followed by a shuffle of cloth and punctuated by the thud of something fleshy hitting metal. Loki turned around to find a youth with close-cut yellow hair bent over the front of Romanoff's car, his face pressed to metal with Romanoff behind him, twisting his arm like one of those Midgardian pretzels. Loki watched her with a bored look, waiting for her to let the youth go, which she did, shoving him to the floor and finally joining Loki at his side.

“You crazy bitch!” the youth called out, running when she turned to arch a brow at him.

“A bit much, don't you think?” Loki asked as they crossed the street.

“Sure, but now all the people watching out of sight will think twice before looking at my sweet ride,” Romanoff said, not even bothering to check if her assumption about the watchers was correct. 

“Agent Romanoff,” Loki said, “If ever the fates conspire to relieve you of your position with SHIELD and for me to form an army –“

“Noted,” Romanoff said with a small smile. Loki grinned beside her and they made their way into the library. 

The first thing that surprised Loki was the fact that the doors were invitingly wide open, the windows were no longer boarded up and light was filling the main library, illuminating the tidied shelves and clean furnishings. The second thing that surprised him was the small child who ran straight at him, stopping only because Loki held his little head before a collision could occur. The boy stopped and wriggled free. 

He held up a book for Romanoff and said, “Can I have this?”

Loki tilted his head at the book. It was a small thing with a couple on the front cover, the man with billowing locks of golden hair, holding to him a woman with raven tresses and more bosoms than anyone had a right to possess. Both man and woman were joined together in a lustful clinch, the sea smashing into the rocks behind them. 

Loki narrowed his eyes at the book and said, “Why not? We must all start to cultivate our romantic expectations at some point. Start early and you can get all the disappointments out of the way sooner. By all means, my little hobgoblin, take it.”

Romanoff took the book from the grinning boy, frowned at it and then pulled the kind of face Thor might have if someone had told him all the mead was gone. She looked at the child and said, “What did I tell you about grown up books?”

The boy pouted. “They're for grown ups only.” 

“Exactly. Now where's your mom?” The boy pointed in the direction of a smaller room that Loki had never really explored. Romanoff nodded at the boy and said, “Go.”

The boy ran away and Romanoff smacked the book against Loki's chest. He held onto it, frowning as he looked around at the people milling about. There was an old man reading a newspaper. There were at least four people hidden between the shelves. A woman sat at a computer. And finally, someone familiar walked out from behind a door which had a sign on it with the single word STAFF. 

Loki smiled and said, “Captain.”

Rogers stared at Loki and then at Romanoff. “He's the surprise?”

Romanoff shrugged. “I didn't have time to get cake.”

“Well, don't look so disappointed,” Loki said, giving Rogers an overly wounded look. “Especially after all the tears I'm sure you've cried at my bedside.”

Rogers smiled, shaking his head. “And here I was beginning to miss you.”

Loki snorted, casting his abode another look. He waved a hand and asked Rogers, “I take it this is a manifestation of your grief?”

Rogers rolled his eyes and pointed to the staff door. “Come on. I'll explain. Natasha, could you keep your eye on the place for a while?”

Romanoff nodded, placing herself behind the counter and picking up a book that lay close by. Loki blinked at the sight and mutely followed Rogers all the way to the back of the building where it appeared the office was now being used as an office again. With a sigh, Rogers went to stand in front of one of the desks and sat down on the edge of it, hands shoved in pockets and guilty look on his face. Loki watched and waited, mildly intrigued.

“So, you're not looking so... blue,” Rogers said.

Loki looked at his hand, turning it over and palm up again. It almost looked like a trick of the light. Only, it wasn't. It was a reassertion of his truth under pressure. “Yes. The illness has all but passed.”

Rogers nodded. “Yeah. You do look better.”

“Why, Captain, I didn't realised you cared so much.” Loki smiled, fluttering his eyelashes. Rogers opened his mouth and Loki watched it flap for a moment, Rogers' cheeks turning pink. Loki laughed and said, “I tease, of course.”

“Oh. I know,” Rogers said after a moment of facial contortion. He looked annoyed for a second then. Brow creased, he told Loki, “I do care. I mean, how many friends do either of us have here anyway?”

Loki stared at him mutely. Friends had been a touchy subject on Asgard. Thor's friends endured him and his own had abandoned him by the time he had come of an age. That age when they understood he wasn't one of them. Loki nodded, mouth having become stuck.

“So,” Rogers said after a moment. “The library. You're probably curious as to why it's –“

“A library?” Loki asked.

“Um. Yeah,” Rogers answered. “Look, someone saw me coming out of here and they asked me if the place was being re-opened. I said it wasn't but they could take whatever they wanted. Turns out she only wanted to borrow some books. She took them, read them and brought them back. Then she turned up again, with a friend. And again. This time with another friend. Then this fella turned up with his little boy and said he'd heard we were letting people in to take books. I couldn't turn them away, not when this place is just sitting here. It's... it's not right.”

Loki frowned. “It's not?”

Rogers had a pained expression on his face. “No. It's not. Taking away from people who have nothing, it's never right. Books from children. From the old. The poor. Everything just seems so broken. This isn't what I... what I expected the future to be like.”

Loki suspected there were bigger reasons than a closed building of books for Rogers to look so frustrated. He looked at the door from where they had come in and asked, “And this makes you happy? These people?”

Rogers looked thoughtful. He swallowed, nodding firmly. “It's not saving the world, but it's doing something. Right?”

Loki shrugged. “Why not? If the sticky fingers of children and the musk of humanity don't bother you, I can't say they're much of a concern to me.”

Rogers was staring. “Really?”

“I just saw a man with a bright orange hat,” Loki said. “Where else am I to find such spectacle?”

Rogers smiled, despite reprimanding Loki. “These people aren't here to entertain you.”

“And yet, here they are,” Loki said with a grin. “Entertaining me.”

There were no more reprimands from Rogers. Just a quiet look, his gaze too steady and knowledgeable, while Loki stood there still putting back together the parts of himself his spectre had tried to shatter. He felt tired. Tired and far from home and suddenly, nothing was entertaining, not really. Everything hurt a little, he thought, blinking at something past Rogers' shoulder. 

“You okay?” Rogers asked. When Loki didn't reply, he said, “What happened to you –“

“I see we're not mentioning Peggy,” Loki said. 

It appeared that even Rogers could look less than welcoming. Flint in his eyes, steel in his jaw, he was immaculately still. Nodding and standing he said, “Point taken. You keep it to yourself and tell me how that works out for you.”

“It hasn't done me any harm as yet,” Loki said, turning away from Rogers and walking towards the door. 

“You sure about that?” Rogers asked him as he stepped through the door.

Loki turned and smiled at Rogers. “Play nice, Captain. We're all friends here.”

Loki left Rogers in his new office to find Romanoff in conversation with an elderly man. There was a wide indulgent smile on her face and her eyes were full of mirth as the man spoke to her, hands gesticulating as he talked with some enthusiasm. She was at ease in a way Loki hadn't noticed before. No longer on guard, her immaculate mask momentarily pushed up like the visor of a helmet. Were she to walk down the street with that look on her face, no would ever guess there was more red on her hands than in her hair. 

Loki slowly made his way up the steps to his room. The dreariness of the building weigh on him today. His mind felt like a black shadow had been cast across it and he craved golden light to lift the dark mists. What was he doing on Midgard with these people, these little people with their small lives? Loki scowled and looked down at the book he was still holding, the small papery joke of a tome. This was Midgard. People making do with consolation that was extravagant yet so small. People just making do. 

Loki tossed the book onto the bed and looked around. The windows were no longer boarded in here either and now the sun shone through their stained glass in an array of hues. He turned his face in the direction of the light, closing his eyes. The warmth didn't irritate him on his right side. It was pleasant and soothing, his Jotun skin prickling even at the thought about light and warmth and touch. Turning away from the window, he finally looked in the direction of his mirror.

It stood there gleaming with gold and diamond in its metal and glass, shining like a thing of Asgard. Only, his reflection was not a thing of Asgard. Loki was completely blue, his eyes were red and his skin was covered in raised markings. The mirror showed him his reflection, vivid, full of clarity and sharp with truth. Loki knew he was going to smash it to pieces even before he held his hand out for his cane, whispering a harsh, “Come to me.”

His hand remained empty. Loki angrily twisted around and looked around the room. So sparse of belonging, he should have seen it without even having to look. But no, the cane was nowhere in his line of sight. Again, Loki held out his arm, hand open with his palm up.

“Come,” he urged. 

Still nothing except for a rusty buzzing under Loki's skin, sending out an uncomfortable flare of warmth. He stumbled towards the bed and sat down, back turned towards the mirror. The hand clutching the sheets was tinged pale blue. He closed his eyes and shut out the vision, admitting to himself finally that his heart was sick for home.


	8. Chapter 8

Against his will, Loki had fallen asleep, his body still recovering after his ejection from the supposedly safe neutral pocket where he had met his spectre self. Couldn't have been that neutral if he could still hear his bones rattling. As the sun began to dim, Loki became aware of hovering between sleeping and waking, the soft light of the evening gently trying to pry his eyes open as he lay dreaming.

It was an uncomfortable aching thing of a dream in which he writhed and hungered, twisted and turned. He was crawling, pulled towards something that would satiate his desire, though he knew, his desires were few and always overruled by his mind. He moved in the direction of the sun, in the direction of sand and heat. A glint of sunlight hitting metal was what finally made Loki's eyes snap open. 

He slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows, frowning at the half-read book on his chest. He could hear Rogers downstairs, ushering people out of the building with polite goodbyes. Loki could hear him, addressing them by their names, each one preciously remembered. He shook his head and sat up, book falling into his lap, before he put it aside. Glancing at the mirror, he still saw himself as a Jotun in SHIELD clothing. 

“What are you looking at?” he murmured at his reflection before flopping onto his back and blinking up at the wooden rafters. 

He wondered how things were in Asgard. Was Odin awake? Was Thor still angry? Had anyone actually noticed the presence of the Queen? The way she weaved in and out of the daily machinations of Asgard, a word here, a word there, never enough to be noticed, but sometimes enough to cause the smallest shift. It was his mother's whispering in his father's ear that lay bare Loki's secret heritage, turned him from Odinson to Jotun foundling, he quietly mused. She certainly knew how to prod from behind, Loki thought.

“I went to see her.” Loki turned his face towards the door, sitting up again when he saw Rogers standing there looking as openly miserable as only he could. Loki nodded and Rogers walked in.

“A happy reunion?” Loki asked, though the question needed no answer. This much was obvious from Rogers' expression.

Rogers went to lean against the wall, arms folded across his chest. His eyes were fixed ahead, back in some memory he was keeping to himself. He smiled, his eyes not smiling with his mouth. “She told me I was late and that a lady does not take kindly to being kept waiting.”

Loki nodded. “Smart woman.”

Rogers smiled as his gaze turned to the floor. When he looked back up, his eyes had taken on a bright sheen and he swallowed before speaking again. “She has a son who visits when he can. Couple of grand-kids. She lives in this home, for old folks... I saw this nurse while I was there. I know she thought she was being kind, but she was talking to Peggy like, like you'd talk to a little kid. Like she was... an inconvenience. She had no idea who she was talking to. All she could see was an old woman cycling through the same conversations over and over.”

Rogers took a shaky breath and clamped his mouth shut, pinching the bridge of his nose and sniffing, eliminating tears before they could even make an appearance. “Tell me something, Loki, what do they do with the old where you come from?”

Loki made a noise somewhere in his chest. “We put them on thrones and call them gods. The whiter the beard the better for making rules. Rules to make the strong stronger and the weak even weaker. I'm afraid there is no realm where someone is not being trampled upon and where someone is not doing the trampling.”

The misery in Roger's eyes had faded back to something more determined. “Doesn't mean you have to accept it. Someone has to decide what's right and what's wrong.”

Loki smiled, marvelling at Rogers slightly. He possessed the strength of a god, of this Loki was certain, and here he stood, hurting like no god Loki had ever seen. Even the almighty Odin had never shed a tear for his subjects. 

“So, your turn,” Rogers said, clearing his throat. “Want to tell me why I found you unconscious and blue? Emphasis, _blue_.”

Loki said, “A sickness from which I am healed.”

“One that laid you out for days,” Rogers said. When Loki opened his mouth to contextualise, Rogers held up a hand and said, “I know, puny Midgardian days. What happened? Was it him and can he do it again?”

Loki took a moment to appreciate Rogers skipping ahead to the most important part; could this happen again? Loki got up from his bed and took a few steps in the direction of the mirror. Rogers was looking at it too, but he didn't appear to find anything strange in Loki's reflection. Loki smiled at the mirror; this was a gift just for him it seemed. 

“He is the reason why there are veils between universes,” Loki said. “We should not have crossed each other's paths. I should not have summoned him.”

“You did wha –“

“Please, Captain. I fear my curiosity got the better of me. I was foolish and I've paid the price,” Loki said, bringing his blue hand up to the blue tinged skin of his face. “He can't do it again because I won't give him the opportunity. His weapon was stronger than mine, but I sense his magic is not. Not to mention the fact that he probably thinks I'm dead.”

Rogers was quiet, staring at Loki, both of them looking at each other's reflections before Loki turned around and faced Rogers who asked, “He tried to kill you?”

Loki thought back to those manic eyes, those angry tears. “He wanted to hurt someone. I was conveniently there.”

“It doesn't bother you that a version of you tried to kill you?”

Growing weary, Loki walked past Rogers and took to his bed once again, picking up the slim volume Romanoff had handed him earlier. Looking up at Rogers, he said, “It bothers me... greatly. Does that answer satisfy?”

Rogers straightened up, scowling at Loki. He nodded and said, “Actually, it does. I'm beginning to feel like an old lady who's annoyed by everything.”

Loki smiled and found his place in the book. “Because that's precisely what you are.”

“Hey, you two want to eat?” Romanoff asked, stopping to lean against the inside of the doorway to Loki's room. 

Rogers looked at Loki who nodded. He then told Romanoff, “Sure, sounds good. What were you thinking?”

“Diner,” she said, pushing away from the doorframe. 

“Great,” Rogers said. 

Loki watched Romanoff nod to Rogers, turning to leave while Rogers tugged at Loki's book until he had it. Rogers started to flicking through it, just as Loki looked up to see that Romanoff had stopped in her tracks, frowning at her reflection. Loki followed her gaze where all he saw different in the reflection was that damned blue of his skin. He looked back at her, her eyes shuttering. She had seen something and was now locking it away.

“Interesting mirror,” she said, her tone markedly different from the casual query of moments ago. 

“That's one word to describe it,” Rogers said, glancing at the mirror and back at the book in his hands.

“This the one you've been using as a revolving door?” she asked Loki.

“I see Agent Barton filled you in.” Romanoff nodded, still eyeing the mirror. Loki looked at it and then her again. “You seem particularly enamoured by it.”

Romanoff smiled at Loki. No, he thought, he had seen a real smile. He knew this wasn't one of them. “I like pretty things.”

“We can't have this on the shelves,” Rogers said. Loki and Romanoff both looked away from each other to see Rogers holding up Loki's book. “This is... this is... people really read these?”

Romanoff tilted her head and looked at the cover. “Not my thing. I'm more into the classics. But yes, they do.”

Loki held up his hand and snapped his fingers, pleased when the book flew out of Rogers' hands and back into his own, swift and obedient. Excellent, he thought.

“Where exactly do people look like _that_?” Rogers asked, pointing accusingly at the front cover of Loki's book, unaware that his rather stellar physique could easily grace the cover of this book. Loki looked at the front cover and bit his lip to hold back a smile as Rogers said, “Should we be keeping them behind the counter?”

Romanoff grinned at Rogers and said, “They really don't make them like you anymore, Cap, do they?”

Loki looked Rogers up and down. “Trust me, if they still knew how, they would.”

Rogers turned away from both of them, leaving for the door. “I'll get my jacket and wait for you outside.”

Loki grinned as Romanoff laughed, both watching Rogers exiting the room. Romanoff was still smiling when she turned back to see Loki looking up from the bed. 

“What do you see in the mirror?” Loki whispered. 

Romanoff looked away from him, eyeing her reflection. “You don't see it?”

“I see me. A me I'd would rather not see.” She nodded, forehead crinkling and eyes flicking to the side. That was all it had taken for her, that one second. She'd made sense of it, Loki thought. “Tell me.”

“I have red in my ledger,” she said quietly, staring hard at her reflection, as if forcing herself to stand there and confront it. “And I see it.”

Loki got up from the bed, standing between Romanoff and the mirror. “What say you and I smash this mirror to pieces?”

She looked up at him, a smile gently teasing her mouth. “That's seven years of bad luck here, a broken mirror.”

“I'm not from here,” Loki said. “And I don't believe in luck.”

"Maybe later." She smiled completely and turned to leave, telling him, “I'm hungry. You coming or not?”

He watched her leave, not an unpleasant demand on the eyes at all. One that left him smiling, in fact. Then he turned around swiftly to look at his Jotun self. He held out his hand once more and this time commanded in his Aesir tongue for the cane, to _Come. Return to me._

Nothing. 

This time, with words that called on the staff under illusion, to return to its master, to do duty by the magic invested within it, to do duty by the tongue that commanded it. _Come, Silvertongue_. 

Nothing. Nothing except a strange sickening feeling in the pit of Loki's stomach, one that left his mouth watering unpleasantly. He looked about the room and saw no sign of the cane. It couldn't have stopped functioning, not after he used it to save himself from the portal. No, he had brought it back. It had fallen from his hand. 

Loki stared at the floor, walking up to the spot where he had fallen. There, where he had lain, by his head he had seen it, curling up and slithering away from him. Loki whispered words to _bring to light that which is hidden in plain sight._ He crouched down on the floor and saw them, the kind of shapes a snake would make in the desert sand. Long slithering shapes, scorched beyond the seeing eye. When he lifted the magic, they were no longer there. 

Loki sat there, tracing his finger across his lip in thought before tapping it against his teeth. Finally, he reached the conclusion that _this_ was, “Interesting.”

# *

Dinner was a pleasant affair, as it always was when it involved watching Rogers read a newspaper and grow every shade of possible of irritated. “Another tower?“

“I rather like Stark Tower. It's so... big,” Loki said with a grin.

Rogers rolled his eyes and closed the paper. “Well, you should like Stark too then. From what I hear, his ego's the size of the moon.”

“That's unfair,” Romanoff said from where she sat opposite Loki, and next to Rogers. “More like the sun, I think. Yes. Yes, definitely more like the sun.”

“Yeah, go right ahead and laugh it up. I'm going to visit the men's room.” Rogers shook his head and slid out of the booth, holding up a hand as Loki opened his mouth. “I know, it's misleading, we're not doing this right now.”

Rogers' hand turned into a silencing finger as he retreated, colliding into a woman and charming her instantly with his earnest apology. Romanoff tilted her head in Rogers' direction and asked, “You have any of those on Asgard?”

Loki smiled, feeling that though there were none like Steve Rogers, some did come close, on occasion. He picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip before replying, “Not quite.”

“Don't gods eat?” Romanoff asked, her hand holding three fries and hovering near her mouth as she waited for an answer. 

Loki reached into the little red basket in front of her and snatched a fry, bringing it to his mouth and biting. He wrinkled his nose at the taste, mostly salt and miscellaneous. “Gods have all the appetites of humans. Especially the Asgardian gods.”

“Could have fooled me,” Romanoff said, picking up her beverage and sucking on the straw inside the cup. Loki took a generous mouthful of his coffee, which was bitter and sharp on his tongue. 

“Hunger, sleep and lust,” Loki said quietly, “And a waste of precious energy.”

“That doesn't sound very Asgardian,” Romanoff said as Loki stiffened where he sat. He gave her a measured smile. “Is it?”

“This red in your ledger,” Loki said, linking his fingers together in front of him. “I'm intrigued.”

Romanoff nodded. “Of course you are. Just like I am by your facing away from any reflective surface so you don't have to see the blue on your face. Even now, you won't look at your hand. What's that about?”

Loki leaned forward and grinned. “I must confess, that as much as I loathe these natural lustful appetites, were I interested in pandering to such need, you, Agent Romanoff, would be occupying a great deal of my baser thoughts tonight.”

Romanoff grinned back at him, leaning in conspiratorially and telling him, “I really wish I could say the same.”

Loki laughed, leaning back in his seat, while Romanoff smiled at him, popping another fry in her mouth. Loki drank his coffee and mused, “Black Widow. They must have died happy men.”

Romanoff's smile curved up, wry and dry. “I really hope not.”

Loki couldn't have stopped himself from smiling if he tried. It was how Rogers found both him and Romanoff, sitting in the booth utterly amused by each other. He frowned at them and said, “I really don't want to know. Who's for pie?”

“Just us two,” Romanoff, answered. “Loki doesn't like to indulge. Likes to keep his mind free for other mischief, right?”

“Listen to her,” Loki said. “The assassin knows what she's talking about.”

“I'm going to start eating alone,” Rogers muttered, turning in the direction of the counter and all its pie. He didn't get very far. The diner was suddenly plunged into darkness. “What the?”

Loki and Romanoff were up on their feet, Rogers moving to stand between them and look out of the diner window, into the street where all the lights had gone out and cars were screeching to a halt. 

“Power cut?” Rogers asked.

“Maybe,” Romanoff replied, nodding.

“No.” Loki shook his head. He felt it. He felt it inside his gut, a hungry thing that lay out there. Familiar, yet foreign. All desire and nothing else. Awake and rearing its head to devour. “There's something out there”

# *

The street outside the diner was filled with honking cars, the traffic lights no longer working. Helicopters were circling above and police sirens could be heard in the distance. Romanoff stood some feet away, talking into her phone while eyeing the helicopters that shone down beams of light from the night sky. Loki tilted his head up at the buildings in the distance, his ear towards sounds carried on the breeze. His body felt the uncomfortable tug of dark magic in the air, like a coaxing finger under his chin. It was in the same direction as the progress of the darkening. 

“Natasha says this isn't the first power outage. Just the first one to take out a whole block,” Rogers said, joining Loki at his side. “You sure there's something out there?”

Loki pointed at a tower in the distance, its lights flickering as if undecided on remaining or failing. A few more seconds, and the lights went out. “It's moving in that direction.”

Rogers was quiet for a moment, his hands moving to rest on his hips as if he was preparing to carry the weight of the world on those square shoulders. He turned to glance at Romanoff, still on her phone. When he turned back, he said, "Loki, you were out for two weeks, you're still recovering-"

“I used dark magic to summon him,” Loki said. “That place to which I summoned him was covered in it, drenched, just like anything that would have come out of it. I would feel it whether I wanted to or not. I _do_ feel it.”

Rogers nodded slowly, but Loki could see the doubt reflected in his eyes as the headlights of a nearby car illuminated Rogers' face. Quietly, he told Loki, “Okay.”

Loki turned frowned at Rogers. “That's it? Okay?"

“If you say you feel something, then you feel something,” Rogers said. “You think it's him, don't you? The other... you.”

What else could exert a pull so strong that Loki felt immense relief when he stepped out of its range, as if something wrapped tight around his torso loosened when he moved back from the taste, the sound of this _thing_. Loki turned from Rogers and began to retreat down the street.

“Where are you going?” Rogers ran after him before falling into step beside him, matching quick pace for quick pace. 

“I need to find my cane,” Loki said. Rogers instantly looked confused. Before he could air his thoughts, Loki added, “It's enchanted to remember every spell I've cast since I first held it. It knows what I want and where I want to go before I even utter the words. If anything can lead us to whatever this thing is, it's Silvertongue.”

“You named your cane?” Rogers asked.

“It's an Asgardian thing,” Loki replied, resuming his course. “Talk to Fury, he has eyes everywhere. Find out if our power outages happen to have my face attached to them.”

“And if they do?” Rogers called out. Loki didn't dare think about it, _that_ mad face in their midst. Rogers persisted with his line of questioning with a, “Loki!”

“We'll need more Avengers,” Loki called back, not stopping until he reached the library, sprinting up the steps to his room, where the only light was that of the moon, filtering through clouds and windows.

His cane was no Mjölnir or Gungnir. It was no more than a well-carved piece of Midgardian wood with an elegant silver headpiece. Its beauty had struck Loki and he had taken it, carrying within it nuggets of magic, as one might keep information in those phone contraptions. Most importantly, it carried within it the magic of that portal where Loki had met the spectre. It knew the taint of that place because it had been used to focus Loki's enchantment. 

He walked into his room, looking left, looking right. A few whispered words and a flick of his wrist pushed the few furnishings there were to the sides of the room, leaving a clear view of the floor. Nothing. Scowling with frustration, Loki walked into the middle of the room, rubbing his boot over the spot where he had seen those strange marks the night before. When he had fallen from the mirror, had he imagined his cane slither away? Even if it was for some mad reason curled up in a corner of this building, why had it not responded to Loki's command?

The lights flickered on and the air buzzed, the room no longer dark. Loki was standing in front of that wretched mirror, his Jotun form on full display. It made something inside him twist from the centre of his chest to the end of his gut. He knew he was to blame. He knew that even objects left too much in the shade of dark magic could forget their true purpose. Mirrors that were reflecting realities of a different kind. Loki walked up to his armchair, grabbed it by the rests and heaved it off the floor, throwing it at the mirror with all his not unimpressive might. The chair bounced off the mirror as if it were a rubber ball, leaving the mirror's position, shine and structure untouched while Loki stared at his own stunned reflection. 

He scowled at the mirror, taking a few steps back. Fine, he had no cane. It was an inconvenience at best. He drew his arm back and whipped out a blast of pure energy from his fingertips. It took a moment to expel, but years of learning to conjure whilst blowing holes in ornate walls. The blast hit the mirror and ricocheted off, whizzing past Loki's ear and out of the door into the stairwell. He heard Rogers yell out in surprise before his footfalls sped up and he came running into the room with Romanoff in tow.

Both of them looked at the fallen chair and the moved furnishings. Loki asked, “News?”

“Power's back,” Rogers said, as if he hadn't heard Loki at all. He pointed at the chair. “What happened here?”

“I felt like redecorating,” Loki said, flicking his wrist in the direction of the fallen armchair and flipping it upright in one swift move before falling into it. He crossed his legs and rested his elbows on the armrests. 

“Look,” Rogers started, with what was undoubtedly going to be a comforting platitude, despite the fact that Loki was not in need of none.

“Does Fury know yet?” Loki asked, looking up Rogers. 

Rogers shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Know what?” Romanoff asked, angling her body to leave her reflection out of her sight. How Loki would have loved to see that reflection, with all that red in her ledger. 

“It's a long story,” Rogers said, sounding tired. 

“So give me the short version,” Romanoff said. 

Rogers gave Loki a look, something he recognised as a prompt to, as the Midgardians might say, _fess up_. Loki smiled at Romanoff, waving one hand in the direction of the mirror. “It's possible that I have summoned an alternate version of myself into your world, one who appears to have taken an immense dislike to me and by extension, I'm guessing, _you_.”

“You don't say,” Romanoff said flatly, walking across the room and sitting down on the end of his bed, leaning back on the palms of her hands, legs elegantly crossed. “Two questions. Why and how?”

“Why, because I am cursed by my curious nature and how, because I am cursed by own prowess as a master of the magical arts,” Loki said, with utmost seriousness.

“Humble too,” Rogers commented. 

“A word of advice, Captain. Humility serves you well, but not as well as knowing your own strengths,” Loki said. 

“What about knowing own your limits?” Romanoff asked. “Somewhere around the blue end of the colour spectrum?”

Loki grinned and looked at his hand, flexing his fingers. The skin on his face and neck itched where he knew it was still a shade of Jotun. “This? Unforeseen circumstances. Hardly a limit. I still managed to break the enchantment that held us together and to return to my reality.”

“Bringing him with you,” Romanoff said. 

Before Loki could answer, Rogers said, “We can't be sure of that yet. Let's not jump the gun here.”

“Sure. I mean, how bad could a bad version of Loki be anyway?” Romanoff said.

Rogers turned to Loki and said, “We _should_ tell Fury.”

Loki let his head loll in Romanoff's direction before he rolled his eyes at her. She smiled at him far too sweetly. “I'll let Cap handle that conversation since he knows more about it than I do. In the meantime, you guys mind if I stay here tonight?”

Loki smiled at her. “Mind? Norns forbid such I thing. Stay as many nights as you wish.” 

This time Romanoff rolled her eyes and turned to Rogers. “Do you have a place I can crash?”

Loki leaned forward in his armchair and said, “You're more than welcome to share by bed, Agent. It's big enough for the both of us. In fact, I'd hazard a guess it's big enough for three close friends.”

Romanoff smiled and said, “I'd rather sleep in a _pit_ of vipers.”

Rogers pursed his mouth in that way he did where he was trying not to laugh and act far too old for whatever age that mind of his was. He told Romanoff, “You can take my bed, I'll bunk up here.”

Loki sat back in his chair and grinned. “Even better.”

Rogers pointedly ignored the suggestive leer Loki sent him. “I'm going to call Fury. Natasha?”

Romanoff got up, arched a brow at Loki and followed Rogers out of the room. Loki slumped back against the chair, head tilting back so he could blink up at the wooden rafters. His fingers flexed and stroked empty air, magic sailing on invisible waves, reaching for that enchanted cane. 

_Come to me_. 

Nothing. Loki rubbed his fingers together, flexing them and watching the misted curl of a bright green snake illusion weave through his digits, wrap around his wrist before disappearing like smoke. 

“If I am no longer commanding you,” Loki whispered. “Then, who is?”


	9. Chapter 9

Rogers returned some time later, attired for sleep, whilst Loki remained seated in his armchair, now facing that mirror, as if he could will away his Jotun image. Behind him, Rogers told Loki he was going to 'turn in for the night' and slipped under the covers of Loki's bed, telling him 'goodnight'. Loki remained as he was, watching the still Jotun figure in front. In the mirror, Loki could see Rogers in the bed behind the chair, lying on his side, a still lump. Loki held up a hand, snapped his fingers and turned off the lights, letting Rogers take comfort in the dark as he Loki hid from his reflection.

How adept you've become at hiding, Loki thought, so much so you sometimes forget what you really are. The wolf in sheep's clothing. The monster wearing god-skin. A boy still running, still afraid. That same boy who had found every hiding place Asgard had to offer. The man who then learned of every way in and every way out. 

“You're still up,” Rogers said, voice rusty with sleep. Loki realised he had been sitting there for hours, lost in old memories. 

“I don't sleep well,” Loki muttered absently. Slowly, he said, “I'm craving apples.”

Rogers was silent for a while, before he asked, “You're hungry?”

“No,” Loki said. “Not hungry.”

More silence followed. To his credit, when Rogers spoke, he kept out any sign of confusion. “Okay.”

Loki sighed, his rigid frame suddenly breaking. He slumped against the back of his armchair, closing his eyes. “I don't expect you to understand.”

“Apple pie,” Rogers said, without hesitation. “When you were laid up and I was knee deep in books downstairs, I had this sudden craving for apple pie. Reminds me of home, I guess. Comfort. Security. Bright moments during dark times.”

Loki was blinking up at the ceiling, on the other side of which lay his precious Asgard. Had they just let him go? Was Odin awake, not caring that Loki was gone? Was Thor smashing all his memories of Loki? Did his mother still care for his precious heart? Where were they all? 

“You should sleep,” Rogers said.

“Gods do not sleep,” Loki said dully, thinking of his father in the Odinsleep, senses wide open so he could despair over two sons that had failed him. Or maybe just regretting being father to one of those sons. 

“I'm pretty sure I've seen you sleep.”

Loki smiled, “Perhaps my godhood is only skin deep then.”

They both descended into quiet. After a while, Rogers sighed, becoming quiet. In the mirror, despite the dark, Loki could see Rogers lying on his back, his fingers linked beneath his head, the bedcovers rumpled around his waist. Loki watched him for far too long, that body with godlike strength. Those eyes, they were almost the right blue. His hair had touches of sun. Loki felt a pang of longing so hard it surprised even him.

“What's Asgard like?” Rogers asked, sounding curious and sleepy at the same time.

Loki's reply came easy. “Golden. Under pink and blue starry mists. If you go to the edges of her oceans, you can see into the very depths of the universe, fall right into them if you're not careful. The winters are white and the summers are yellow. In between, the weather is temperate, leaves like emeralds in the spring, like honey in the autumn. Babbling brooks and whispering trees, it is a realm of poetry...”

Rogers responded with a soft snore. Loki made a noise in his throat, amused. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back to rest against the back of the chair. He sat there and waited for the spectre to show himself. He waited for the blue to fade from his skin. For Odin to wake. For Thor to come after Loki like he always did. He slept uneasily, dreaming of things past and inventions of his own mind. Even when lips pressed against his mouth, he knew he was still locked in the misery of his dreams. He watched Thor pull away from him slowly, Thor's hands sliding down his arms to hold his hands to the armrests of the chair.

“You're angry with _me_?” Thor asked, with wide enquiring eyes. Loki's jaw clenched. He blinked at Thor, saying nothing. Thor laughed, shaking his head. “Angry because I didn't come running after you, the spoiled rotten child that you are?”

Loki swallowed, blinking at the mist of this nightmare. Wake up, he told his heavy rolling mind, wake up. Thor pulled away, sinking to his knees, sitting at Loki's feet and looking up at him with raised brows. Loki felt Thor's firm and strong hand slide up his calf and stay there. Thor leaned forward, pressing his still mouth to Loki's knee with a gentleness of which few were aware.

Looking up at Loki, he whispered, “Look at you. How well you've done. First you put our father to sleep, then you ran from my side and now you're here, victim to your own ego. Did you forget so easily what father told you?”

Loki murmured, “There's no such thing as a master of dark magic.”

“No such thing,” Thor echoed. He opened his mouth to say more, but Loki surged forward and pressed his fingers to Thor's mouth.

“Please don't,” Loki whispered. Thor blinked at Loki and Loki's fingers traced his bottom lip before curling against Thor's chin. His breath caught miserably. 

Someone shook his shoulder. “Loki. Wake up.”

Loki opened his eyes to find Rogers dressed and looking fresh. The sun had risen and the room was now filled with warm light. It did nothing to lift Loki's mood, left morbid with the dark veil of his dreams. 

“Fury's on his way.” Rogers looked back at the mirror and then at Loki. “I think he wants to talk to you about the other guy.”

“Of course.” Loki nodded. Then he aimed his best smile at Rogers and asked, “Any chance of getting some breakfast?”

# *

They sat in Rogers' room as they waited. Loki stood by the windows from where he watched the television as Romanoff sat with Rogers on the end of his bed. The latest television reports seemed to suggest that there was a slightly more sinister angle to the blackouts. People were seeing things, though there was a reluctance to mention what these things were.

“Damage control,” Romanoff said, pulling her feet off the floor to sit cross-legged. Next to her, Rogers reached down for his cup of coffee and took a gulp. “Can't have people causing mass hysteria.”

Loki watched the television, thoughtfully scratching his bottom lip as it displayed a dotted map of grid overloads. Linked up, they would make a nice neat red line heading away from New York. No randomness. No chaos in those dots whatsoever. The line was moving forward with purpose. Why doesn't he want me, Loki wondered? Why after trying to kill him, was he going in the opposite direction?

“Well, isn't this cosy?” Loki, Rogers and Romanoff all turned to find Fury standing in the doorway to Rogers' bedroom, black briefcase in hand and ominous look on his face. Rogers and Romanoff both got up. He nodded and said, “At ease. How about we take this slumber party outside?”

They all sat down at a long wooden study table in the library, Fury standing at its head to open up the briefcase. Loki spotted the embedded monitor and keyboard from where he sat. He knew Midgardian technology to be sophisticated enough that Fury didn't have to carry something so cumbersome, in which case, this machine was probably a little more advanced than its humble design was suggesting. That became clear when a projection came to life and hung in mid-air.

Fury pointed at the map, his finger tracing a straight line that began in New York. “New York. Pennsylvania. Last stop Ohio. In each case, grid overload. Something's been moving through these places and sucking up electricity like juice through a straw.”

“Something or someone?” Loki asked.

Fury gave Loki a very long and hard stare. “Here's an interesting fact. There have been blips on the grid since two weeks ago, each one indicating an increase in consumption. In fact, there was one on this street the same night Cap called up SHIELD to bring you in. About three hours after Cap found you, there was a power surge on this street. I think maybe you and I need to have a conversation about this man in the mirror and the size of his damn Christmas tree.”

Loki blinked up at Fury, giving him a small conceding nod. Before Fury could say anything else, his phone rang and he turned away from the three of them to take the call. They watched him all the same, talking in urgent tones. Then he was leaving, rushing towards Rogers' room. Romanoff was up first, following him. Rogers and Loki went after her, piling into the room to see Fury stood in front of the television, remote control in hand. 

“Indiana,” he said slowly. “Looks like we a have a positive I.D. on this thing.”

Loki watched the screen to find a street with startled people. Traffic had come to a standstill as what appeared to be a large black snake slithering around and around, as if in on itself, in the middle of the street. Lights in the windows of the shops all flickered as it reared its grey head, flicking out its tongue. The images on the screen stuck for a few seconds before returning to normal. The snake was languidly lifting its head, swaying slightly. Loki could make out golden dotted patterning amongst raven black scales. That grey head was not so grey as it was silvery. It's features were sharply serpentine with artistic accentuation. It was a thing of magic and nothing as mundane as a Midgardian reptile. 

Loki dropped in front of the television, pressing his hands to the screen. “Is this happening now?”

“It's live,” Romanoff said. “Why?”

Loki closed his eyes, whispered words of swift travel, down the paths of images and sounds, of broken bits in power lines. No folding and lifting of space towards him this time. No uncovering of darknesses best left hidden. This place, take me to this place, he murmured in Aesir words. Images of the street clear and sharp in his mind.

“What the – where the hell did you come from?”

Loki turned to frown at the man holding what must have been his recording device. He frowned into the lens and then turned away, heading towards the serpent. It knew Loki was coming just as Loki felt its magnetic pull, a tug so hard it made Loki's stomach clench. 

“Hey. Are you crazy? Get back here!”

Loki ignored the order of an officer and continued on, sending out illusions and confusions to allow him passage past dense crowding. He was a comfortable distance away from the thing now, cars having moved aside to give the creature space in the middle of the street. People were watching from the sidewalk, from windows and doorways. A lone helicopter seemed to be hovering high up above. 

No one appeared to be afraid. At least, not enough. They should have been. They had failed to recognise a predator patiently waiting for prey. The serpent lunged a few feet closer to Loki, hissing loudly. Venom dripped from its mouth and the ground smoked where it landed. People gasped, finally understanding what stood amongst them. Loki's phone began to ring. He rolled his eyes and took the contraption out.

“I'm a little busy,” he said by way of answering.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” Fury demanded.

“It's Silvertongue,” Loki said. “Tell the captain. Tell him I found Silvertongue.”

“You listen to me. Do not try anything stupid. There are far too many civilians at risk and we have no idea what that thing can do. I'm sending a team down there,” Fury said. 

Loki dropped the phone on the ground, startled by the serpent suddenly slithering forward and rearing up right in front of Loki, leaving him staring into most unnatural diamond eyes. He couldn't help but stare a little, his eyes looking the serpent up and down from it's rigid grinning face, down to the thick coiled body. Awed, he whispered, “What are you?”

The serpent twisted into a dark mist and when the mist cleared Loki saw before him a pale being with black unseeing eyes and black raven hair that curled delicately around small ears. Its face was like a blank page with only the necessary features drawn on. Nondescript and without animation. The long robe it wore was made of tiny black shining scales, golden scales dotted amongst them. Loki stared at it, ignoring the noises of terror and surprise around them. 

“We are. Devourer. We are. Prisoner freed. We are. Lokison. Lokidaughter. We shall devour. All but the father,” it spoke without emotion or inflection, its voice soft and low, not quite woman, not quite man.

Loki blinked, taking a step away from it. In a few words, it had raised too many questions already. He asked, “What of my weapon, Silvertongue?”

“We devour. It has been consumed,” it said. “It was our vessel. It was our sustenance.”

Loki nodded, his mind still picking over the words. “Why do you call yourself Lokison, Lokidaughter? I know you not.”

Its' black eyes seemed to blacken even further, skin rippling with strange black inky lines. “The father will come. He shall spill his realm's magic. Into the waters of Angrboða. Prisoner freed. The devourer will be reborn. Lokison. Lokidaughter. He and she will devour all but the father.”

“The father,” Loki said, somewhat hoarsely. “I cannot be your father.”

The creature seemed to grow so still, Loki wondered if it had frozen or simply ceased to be. It's inky black eyes rippled and grew placid again. It's delicate bony hand lifted up and though Loki wanted to move away, that tugging, that connection kept him bound to the spot. Those hypnotic eyes held him in place as the creature touched his temple. He saw...

The darkest places of the universe where things existed in bodiless forms, twisting and writhing against each other, hungering to envelope worlds, to tear them apart. They lived, bound to rocks and imprisoned in swamps, waiting for freedom. Each one of them had enchantments cast on their heads, like locks awaiting the right key. They could all be freed if something, if someone could step into their prisons and release them from their shackles. But who would come? Who could find these prisons, locked out of universes, away from realms? Who could wield such power?

Loki could see himself from afar, standing as if filled with light and promise, as something almighty, something that had conjured this prison to hold himself and another. He saw himself as brimming over with magic, a mixture of sweet and bitter. And he was reaching for Silvertongue. He felt hunger then, twisting with the pain of it and the waters of the prison undulated, parting to receive the presence of the visitor. He was growing within the waters, lunging out and reaching for that enchanted wand when everything was suddenly tearing apart and he was forced to cling with all his might to this destroyer of prisons.

Loki saw himself lying on the floor then, his skin turned blue. Then he is turning towards the mirror and in it he saw a mist, dark and shuddering. He touched the mirror and beneath his fingerless touch, the mirror shifted, locking, becoming unbreakable. He would never pass back through it to that prison or any other. At his feet lay Silvertongue, glowing with a fallen god's enchantments, filled with such nourishing magic. He took it into himself, consuming it, becoming it. Finally, a body, a physical form. What it was to feel again. What it was to be free again and to feed that cavernous hunger. 

Loki fell back onto the ground, turning onto his hands and knees to vomit. Everything tilted up and down for a long time. He was aware that people were shouting at him, telling him to get away from the creature. He was aware the phone was buzzing by his hand. He simply couldn't think beyond his clenched stomach and the bile headed towards his mouth. When was done emptying his stomach, he spat on the ground a few times before slowly finding his feet again, backing away from the creature, shaking his head and refusing to believe his part in this chaos.

“You are. Father,” it told him. “We are. Jörmungandr. We are. Fenrisúlfr. We are. Of Angrboða. Of Loptr. We are. Lokison. Lokidaughter. We. Will. Devour. All but the father.”

“I am not your father, you abomination,” Loki said breathlessly, his eyes stinging as he felt the muscles of his face quiver. “I cannot be father to such monstrosity.”

The creature tilted its head at Loki, blinking slowly. A smile spread across that featureless face, finally creating some landscape. It was a smile that could have mirrored Loki's own, only wider, filled with much more malice. “Then. We will devour. But the father. We will devour last.”

Jörmungandr twisted into mist and rose as a serpent, its mouth opening impossibly wide and a sound emanating from it which was less of a hiss and more of a shrill screech that broke windows of store fronts and cars. Its diamond eyes shone bright and every light in every window was extinguished. Power consumed, the serpent grew in size. An officer ran at Jörmungandr and fired his gun, but the serpent turned and hissed venom at him. Loki expected to see his flesh melt as he stood, but instead, the man froze, a cold mist rising from him as he stood there, a dead sculpture, still pointing his useless weapon.

Loki felt his breath come harshly, heat burning his face. This serpent, this _thing_ , was of his making. This thing was his monstrosity manifest. He could run to the end of the universe, to that point where all universes ceased to be, and still, the fates would find a way of pushing his face into his own ugly truth. At his fingers lay the destruction bequeathed him by two realms. Loki whipped from his fingers powerful blasts that flew like knives towards the serpent. The serpent reared up angrily, its tail lashing behind it, smashing a car in half. Wounded and angry, the serpent crumpled a car with its tail and threw it at Loki. The vehicle smashed into Loki, taking him far down the street.

Loki and the car both skidded to a stop. His bones felt rattled, his body bruised and bloody, clothes torn. It took him a long time to climb out of the wreckage and get back on his feet. When he did, he stood looking in the serpent's direction and muttered, low and angry, “I am a god, you dull creature. If I created you, I swear, I will destroy you too.”

The serpent spread out into a dark mist that blotted out the sun and just as quick it swirled down until Loki saw a ferocious wolf the size of a horse racing towards him, its sharp teeth glistening. Loki held up his hands, spreading out his fingers as he sent out mists of confusion. Then as swiftly, he pulled back before whipping his arm out to throw icy knives laced with the power of the Aesir and the strength of the Jotun. The wolf continued on, each blast hitting it and wounding it, slowing down its approach. Loki yelled and continued throwing one blast after another, watching the wolf near and lunge at him. 

It threw Loki to the ground, it's large paws pinning him down. Its black eyes and fur were both as dark as night and its sharp teeth were white as the moon. It stood over Loki, each breath a rumble in his chest, so deep Loki felt as if it was coming from inside him. The wolf threw up his head then and howled at a pitch so high, Loki wanted to curl on his side and cover his ears. Blessedly, a large and fiery blast hit the wolf square in the ribs, pushing him off Loki and smashing him into a parked car. The wolf fell with a sickening thump, breathing heavily with a liquid gurgle.

Loki looked in the direction of the attacker to find a man of metal hovering in the air, holding out a hand, power glowing in his palm and a panel closing in the armour plating of his arm. Loki turned onto his knees, holding out a hand in the direction of the fallen wolf, power playing visibly at the tips of his fingers, letting the wolf see it now had to contend with two, not one adversary. The wolf turned into a column of black smoke that shot into the air and then came crashing back down to the ground, splashing like water and spreading across it like black liquid, sinking out of sight.

Loki slowly staggered up to his feet, looking at the street which was now lit only by natural light, covered in broken glass and stunned onlookers. The man made of metal set himself down next to Loki to take stock of the devastation left behind. Loki looked to him and said, “How timely of you, Mr. Stark.”

“I like to make an entrance,” Stark said, looking bemused as his visor drew back from his face. Loki stared at the ground, which had been left glistening with transparent goo. The serpent had been wounded. It had gone to ground to rest and grow stronger. It would emerge again to devour. “Hey, Sisters of Mercy, you still in there?”

“It's travelling west,” Loki said, nodding ahead, feeling a fading tugging of that magnetic pull. “So must we if we are to slay the serpent.”

“Slay the serpent.” Stark blinked at Loki for a moment. Then he nodded and said, “Thou art crazy, but you know what, I just saw you trash talking a mutant snake. So, sure, whatever.”

A black unmarked van swerved to a stop close by, doors sliding open. Stark flew over to it as Loki completely ignored it and walked towards the frozen officer who still held his gun in the direction of where the serpent no longer stood. His eyes were wide and unseeing behind the ice that covered him bodily. Even in death, the fear in his eyes remained evident. 

“Pity. You could have been an Avenger. “ Loki whispered numbly, not finding enough humour for his own bad jest. He swallowed and repeated words he knew by rote. “I bid you take your place among your departed in the halls of Valhalla, where thine enemies have been vanquished, where the brave shall live forever. We shall not mourn, but rejoice for those that have died the glorious death.”

Loki turned away from the dead man, past those who were now running in his direction, probably with the hope of still finding life in that block of ice. As he headed to the van, he looked past the blood obscuring one of his eyes, flowing from a cut somewhere on his head. Dragging his leg as he walked, Loki saw the humans meekly venturing into the street, looking at that single frozen man. That one stupid human who had walked out to fight with no more than an ineffectual human weapon. Ahead of him, Stark climbed into the van and Loki followed, glad for the door sliding shut and taking away the sorry view.


	10. Chapter 10

_The father will come. He shall spill his realm's magic. Into the waters of Angrboða. Prisoner freed. The devourer will be reborn. Lokison. Lokidaughter. He and she will devour all but the father_

The words of the beast continued to spin around and around in Loki's head. Those books. This was somewhere in those wretched books. He couldn't remember. No, he didn't want to remember. He sat in the van as it sped to its destination, thinking of the spectre who had been spared this cosmic gift. Opposite him, Stark had discarded his helmet and was engaged in a far too loud phone call.

“Pepper. _Pepper_ ,” Stark said with gritted teeth before rolling his eyes and holding the phone away from himself. He took a deep breath and returned to it with, “Okay, you know what? I can't do this right now. Pepper. Stop. Talking. Stop. Talk – no, _you_ listen to me. Do not hang up. Pepper, I am telling you, do _not_ hang – okay, so that happened.”

Stark sniffed, pulled a face that indicated a larger iceberg of annoyance under the surface, and put his phone aside, before yelling in the driver's direction. “I call donut stop!”

A voice yelled back, “Sorry, sir. The director instructed us not to take any detours. Also, I don't think you can _call_ a donut stop.”

“Really? I thought that was a thing.” He frowned and turned his attention back to Loki, who sat watching Stark with immense interest. Stark blinked at him, making a quiet and detached assessment before he turned his attention to the technology in the palm of his hand. With a sigh he said, “Definitely thought that was a thing.”

“Where are we going?” Loki asked Stark.

“Rendezvous with Fury and the others,” Stark said. “He's rounding up the troops. That or a really big snake charmer.”

Loki arched a brow. “I don't think this is a serpent that can be charmed.”

“Come on,” Stark snorted. “A few compliments, drinks and dinner.”

Loki tilted his head at Stark. There was half a smile on his face. Was he not afraid of the creature? Loki tilted his head in the opposite direction. Stark's eyes were focused on his fingers as he adjusted the firing mechanism in the palm of his hand. Loki could hear him breathing. He sounded as if his heart was still pumping fast from the battle, somewhere under that circular glow in the middle of his chest. Of course, Loki thought as he sat back and closed his eyes, men of iron most often hid their fear behind a shield of words.

Loki remained silent for the rest of the short journey, feigning sleep as he let his injuries heal. Stark on the other hand seemed unable of remaining quiet, engaged in a duel of words with Fury's men, when he wasn't imposing himself on the unfortunate people on the other side of his phone calls. Even as the van came to a stop and they were deposited on an airfield that held a small plane for them, Stark's mouth continued to move all the way into the plane where Stark disappeared through the doors at the end of the cabin, Loki falling into a seat with a sigh.

He looked out of the small window as the plane took off. Mortal flight, he thought, how strange and amazing. These humans had turned metal into wings and learned to fly. The same metal had been forged for travel on the sea, beneath it or on the ground, resting on rubber wheels filled with nothing but air and ingenuity. These humans, such industriousness. 

The serpent would feast well.

“We should be there soon,” Stark said, striding into the cabin with two glasses in hand, filled with familiar amber liquid. He sat them down on the small table in front of Loki and dropped into the seat opposite, now changed out of his suit of armour, the glow of the reactor in his chest visible through his black shirt.

Loki took the glass closest to him, letting the liquid inside swirl around before he took a measured sip. The bitter burn of the drink was pleasant and Loki had to restrain himself from finishing the whole thing. “Where is _there_ exactly?”

“Somewhere back over Ohio,” Stark said absently, before he started rummaging through a bag in the seat next to his. He pulled out a familiar computer device, a thin black square tablet, which he tapped to life. Loki watched him sitting there with brows furrowed as he observed whatever was on the screen. After a moment, he went still and said, “Huh.”

Loki arched an eyebrow and waited for Stark to ask his question. Stark turned his device around so Loki could view footage taken by someone who had been watching in a building above the street where he had met the creature. He could see himself talking to the creature out of its serpent form. From this vantage point they looked like twisted reflections of each other. Then the serpent touched Loki's temple and for a few mere seconds he was entirely blue. 

Loki reached out for the device, taking it and bringing it close. He saw himself staring blindingly ahead, the glow of red eyes apparent. Then the creature stepped away and Loki fell to the ground, the blue of his skin fading away. The sound of whomever was filming could be heard, quiet confusion and fear in her voice. Loki watched the screen and saw himself rising slowly, wobbly on his feet, growling something at the creature. The creature remained still and calm, spoke its few words and then turned to mist. The footage stopped there.

Stark pointed at the device. “You know, a lot of people are going to want to know what the hell you two were talking about before it threw a Honda at you. Me? I'm more interested in _why_ you were talking at all. You don't seem the selfless acts type. Fury says you're more of a performance artist.”

“Such lack of faith. Here I thought Director Fury was quite fond of me.”

“Oh, he is. It's just that in his dictionary, the word fond means deeply suspicious.” Stark leaned back and gave Loki a long assessing look. “You know what that thing is, don't you?”

“A monstrosity,” Loki said, his throat feeling dry and parched. He picked up his glass and finished off the drink. “It is here to devour until there is nothing left.”

“And you know this insanely creepy fact because?”

Loki blinked against the resurgence of the creature's the memories. Squinting as he tried to push them out of his mind, he said, “It showed me.”

“ _Showed_ you.” 

Loki reached up and tapped his finger against his temple. Stark's eyes flicked down to the computer in his hand. “It showed me its memories. Showed me how it's been waiting all this time to escape its cage.”

“Cage,” Stark said flatly. “I'm guessing you're not talking about a cage at the local zoo.”

Loki bit into the corner of his mouth as he remembered the things the serpent had showed him. The agony he had been made to feel. “It was bound to a place between universes.”

Stark laughed, shaking his head. “Thing is some kind of insatiable inter-dimensional convict?”

Loki frowned and turned the words over in his mind. “Yes.”

“And how the hell does something like that end up here?” Stark asked, far too calm to ask such a question. Far too smart to not have presumed an answer.

“Dark magic,” Loki said. “Dark magic polluted the waters that held the serpent. Gave it form. Then all it had to do was ride a powerful wave back into this reality.”

Stark was staring at Loki. “Dark magic.”

Loki arched a brow at him. “Just because your kind do not know how to wield the weapon, does not mean the weapon does not exist.”

Stark nodded. “Well, good job on wielding a weapon that lets out world-eating snakes.”

Loki felt his words flee from his mouth, Stark's last few words rattling around in his skull. He forced a smile instead, taking a moment before he replied, “What a specific deduction.”

Stark grinned and nodded. “I'm smart.”

“Is that so?” Loki asked. “Then you should know when you make use of a skill, of a power many will never possess, you do it out of curiosity, you do it because you can and you do it because an idea unexplored is an idea wasted. You do not expect to release an ancient creature that is a destroyer of worlds.”

“But that's what you did, right?” Stark asked. “You were reckless and now _my_ world is in danger. This thing is going to eat us out of house and home because _you_ got cocky. When you have a skill or a power many will never possess, you also have a responsibility to use that power carefully.”

Loki's eyes flicked down to the glow behind Stark's black shirt, a circle of energy that quietly hummed inside his body. He knew why it was there. He'd read enough about Stark, the forger of weapons who'd had an almost literal change of heart. Looking back at Stark, he said, “That is a lesson almost always learned too late.”

“Yeah, sure. Or maybe it's the kind of lesson you don't give a damn about. I mean, what do you care about what happens to this world?” Stark snorted and shook his head, taking hold of his glass. “Tourists.”

Loki reached out and covered Stark's glass with this hand. “Believe me, if I didn't _give a damn_ about your funny little world, you would know. You would know it good and well.”

Stark snatched the glass away and lifted it to his mouth only to find it empty. He frowned at it and then at Loki, curling his lip in a sour look when realisation struck. “Neat parlour trick. Learn that at god school? What else do you do?”

Loki smiled and replied. “I'd curb my curiosity if I were you. You really don't want to see the tricks I have at my beck and call.”

Stark got up and grinned before reaching for Loki's ear. When his hand came away he held a silver coin. Loki tilted his head at it and laughed. “Tricks are for kids. This is the big leagues. You're going to have to do a hell of a lot more to impress me.”

Stark turned to leave as Loki sat there thinking, who would have thought of a time where the gods would return to impress their worshippers? How Odin would have spat at this and how the Jotuns would have raged. A quiet laugh of amusement escaped Loki as he grinned at Stark's retreating back.

“You have little time for gods,” Loki said quietly. “Yet, you appear to be content to play one.”

Stark stopped, his frame stiffening ever so slightly. When he turned he was smiling, but that smile held no humour and very little patience. “Norse god psychology. Cute. I like it. Got any other talents?”

“A veritable treasure trove of them,” Loki said, winking at Stark. Stark snorted and left the cabin, leaving Loki quietly laughing. 

Loki looked out of the small portal to his left. Somewhere out there the beast was moving, slithering away in the opposite direction, its pull on Loki fading but irritably perceptible. _Father_ it had called him. How could he father such a monstrosity? But then this was what so many had always feared on Asgard, wasn't it? That Loki would be the one to bring about something abhorrent and unnatural into the golden realm. It appeared they might have been right, sitting in their taverns and spinning tales about those strange Jotuns, especially that one who lived under Odin's protection. 

Loki thought back to a night, when he had stepped into the tavern, cloaked in the guise of someone easily ignored. He was playing an old and tired fellow, stopping for his daily reprieve in the bottom of a dirty tankard. Thor often frequented this place, usually looking on and laughing as Fandral told far-fetched stories to the admirers of the Warriors Three. Tonight it wasn't so busy, sullen drinkers sitting at their tables. It was hardly worth staying. Until...

“It's a blessing that everyone knows its just diplomatic nonsense. No one's actually expecting them to make the two-backed beast in the royal bed. Who knows what horrors that could cause. I've heard some strange things about those Jheimers.” 

Loki stiffened where he stood in the dark shadows. For a simple word, a simple shortening of the name of the Jotun realm, it held so much venom, contempt and hate. How he wanted to take the speaker's tongue and rip it from his skull.

“Prince Loki is the future king's consort. I doubt the union will go unconsummated,” someone else countered with a snort and loud gulp of drink.

This was greeted with a laugh. “Why do you think Prince Thor has bedded half this realm? What fire-blooded Asgardian wouldn't in his place? Besides, who would lie with a Jotun? Especially one so haughty and disdainful. He forgets his place, thinks too highly of himself. Just because he looks as the Asgardians, doesn't mean he is one. He's still one of _them_ and mark my words, he will bring horror to our land.”

“Oh, oh, you young fiend!” Loki snapped out of his daze to see a small ageing woman dart across the tavern. She stopped by the table of the one who was so worried for his precious land. “Coming in here with such poison! You ought to be ashamed, biting the hand that feeds you.”

“I am loyal to Odin and his clan, as we all are, Mistress Swift,” came the terse reply. “I am loyal to the keepers of this land. Not the foundlings bore by our enemies.”

Loki swallowed, fist clenching by his side. He had heard things before, but none so succinct in their hatred. He had never felt such heated waves of revulsion. 

“Well, I won't hear any of this. Not in here, Balli,” Swift snapped. “Go on, get out. Come back when you can drink without inviting trouble to my tavern.”

Loki blinked, turning to seek out Balli's face as he stood and turned to leave. “Calm yourself, old woman. I have to arrange a hunt for our good prince in the morning. I wasn't staying anyway.”

“You do that, dear. Go put a few sharp pointy things in some defenceless animals. Everyone knows you can't get more Asgardian than that,” Swift muttered as Balli stomped away from her.

Loki stepped in the man's path and got a good look at him. Tall and wide as Thor, fair hair shorn close to the head and deep set angry blue eyes. He wore a sleeveless hunting fleece with worn brown leather breeches. His arms were covered in ancient runes inked into his skin. 

He shoved Loki aside with, “Out of my way, old man.”

Loki watched him stomp out as Swift came to Loki's side and called after Balli, “Oh. So its Jotuns _and_ old men you don't like. I should speak to your mother!”

Loki watched Balli disappear through the door, considering his options. Follow him? Skewer him? Appear in the guise of a beautiful woman and lie with him, perhaps, revealing himself as a Jotun afterwards. Loki curled his lip in disgust: this would be more of a punishment for him. 

Swift hit him on the arm and said, “Are you drinking or standing?”

“Leaving,” Loki said. Swift muttered and scurried off as Loki followed Balli out of the tavern. 

Out in the alley, Balli had already disappeared. Loki stood morose on the spot for a while, the cogs of his mind turning quickly. He cast off the enchantment as he walked away from the tavern, rounding the corner where he had left his horse only to find Balli standing there and frowning at it, idly patting it on the side. 

Loki plastered on a smile and moved closer, his footfalls grabbing Balli's attention. Immediately, he turned in surprise, stared for a moment and then bowed his head stiffly. “My lord. ”

Loki nodded to the horse. “A fine steed, don't you think?”

Balli's stance was rigid and alarmingly defiant. Heavily, he replied, “Aye, my lord.”

Walking past Balli, Loki easily mounted the horse, taking the reins in hand and looking down at the man below him. They both stared at each other in silence. Loki wondered if Balli was thinking about his earlier words, whether Loki had heard them. Whether tomorrow morning he would be wearing shackles for his unfortunately vocal views. Whether he could be a Jotun-killing hero. 

“You have a good eye, my lord,” Balli said, looking at the horse, the corner of his mouth lifting in a noticeable smirk. 

Ah, thought Loki. He knew this. A reference to one of many bawdy tales. Jotuns, those animal fuckers. Or, that Jotun foundling; who knew what had Odin so enamoured? Or, the Jotun prince, wasn't there just something awfully queer about him? Was he man? Was he woman? He looked nothing like his own kind and most certainly nothing like the archetypal Asgardian warrior. 

Loki smiled, stroking the mane of his horse. “And good ears, I warrant.”

Balli frowned. Loki whipped his reins, the horse rearing up as Loki kept his eyes on the man beneath. Then he thundered away, all the way back to the embrace of the palace. He rode quick, body tensed with anger. What was he to do? What could he do? He did the obvious. He found himself numbly walking through Thor's chambers until he stood on the threshold of the bedchamber, gripping the drapes of the doorway.

Thor lay sleeping across white sheets, under a thin red blanket. He lay on his side, back turned to Loki, one leg slightly drawn up, the other underneath, straight. The blanket had tangled around him, tight around his waist, loose from under his behind to under his thighs, trailing away from there to fall off the bed and pool on the floor, leaving the rest of his flushed skin bare to the night air. Loki could tell Thor's stringy hair was damp, the way it lay heavy against his skull. He wondered if Thor had fallen asleep warm and wet from his bath, like he so often did. 

Loki gripped the drapes as he watched Thor sleep. What did this prince of the realm dream about? Did he dream of the same monsters? He must have dreamt of slaying them, unlike Loki who dreamt of waking to see them in his own mirror. He must have dreamt of all those who fell into his bed with smiles and delight, not of seeing revulsion on their faces. Loki closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the door frame, the drapes soaking up the heat of his skin. He felt his breath coming harshly as he thought of the tavern, Balli's words and the contemptuous look in his eyes. How sure he was of his golden prince, untouched by filthy Jotun hands. 

Loki heard a wet laugh escape him as he pushed himself forward, walking towards Thor's bed. There, he sat down on the edge and watched Thor a while. Here he was, the future king. For the sake of peace, he would take Loki as consort. But no one had explained to Loki why he would be made to stand at Thor's side, everyone so open in their understanding that he was expected to gain nothing from this union. Not even a place in the conjugal bed. 

Loki reached up to unfasten the buckles of his long coat with numb and strangely light fingers. He slipped out of it, letting it fall back on the bed, half of it still caught beneath him. He unlaced his shirt, stopping short of taking it off when he felt a shiver run through his body. With an almost trembling hand, he reached out to the side and cupped Thor's knee, shaking it ever so slightly.

Thor was awake immediately, twisting around onto his back in surprise. He saw Loki, sighed and relaxed against the pillows, pushing his hair back with both hands as he stretched his legs, one at a time. He blinked at Loki, noting his semi-dressed state. Frowning, he asked, “Are you unwell?”

Loki shook his head. “I came to ask you for something.”

Thor narrowed his eyes. “You've never had to ask before. You _must_ be unwell.”

Loki nodded, looking away from Thor. “I confess, I'm not quite myself right now.”

Thor slowly sat up, cupping Loki's shoulder with his hand, his thumb moving in reassuring circles. “What is it?”

Loki looked Thor in his eyes and felt his heart quicken, almost painfully. Then he closed his eyes and cast the enchantment, covering his body in the mist of an illusion. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be close enough and when Thor's hand left his shoulder, he knew it was done. Loki opened his eyes to see Thor frowning at him in clear confusion, his eyes roaming the sharp Jotun ridges of Loki's face, the horn like protrusions and the glowing red eyes. Thor's eyes dropped to Loki's hand and he grinned. 

Now Loki was frowning as Thor picked up his hand. He nodded to it and said, “I have seen a Jotun hand and their nails are not so well kept.”

Loki looked at his black nails that shone, almost gleamed, rather than the ragged ridges he remembered on Laufey's fingers. Thor was quietly laughing at Loki having overlooked this detail. Loki wiggled his fingers and the nails took on a less attractive appearance. Staring at his hand, Loki asked, “Better?”

Thor tipped Loki's chin up and asked, “What's this all about, Loki? Someone has reminded you that there is Jotun blood in your veins and now you're here to see how far and fast I will push you away? Is that it?”

Loki felt a wall of tears forming, but laughed despite it, no matter how insane it must have made him look. “Here I was thinking I'm the wiser of us two.”

“You are. But sometimes you think with a childish heart,” Thor said. Loki pushed Thor's hand aside and turned away to rise and leave. Thor grabbed his arm and kept him in place, shaking him with a firm, “ _Loki_.”

Loki glared, before blurting out, “Kiss me then.”

Thor was frowning again, lost for wise words now. “What?”

“Kiss me,” Loki said. “Not as your brother. Or your friend. Kiss your consort. Like this, if you can truly stomach not pushing away this Jotun-” 

Thor shut up him with a hard kiss, one that made Loki's teeth cut into the inside of his lip from the force of the impact. Thor's arm slipped around Loki, pulling him close as if Thor would pull him into his lap. Loki let his hand rise up to grip Thor's shoulder, warm and hard under his fingers. Thor pulled away to bump his lips against Loki's before kissing him again, this time slower and softer, his hand slipping under the back of Loki's shirt and smoothing its way upwards. Loki let his hand slip under the blanket across Thor's lap, his hand clutching at Thor's thigh as he pushed in closer.

Loki gasped, surprised by Thor's sudden rush forward, pushing him to the bed and covering his body. They fit so easy and equally as Thor lay between Loki's legs, their arms around each other in an easy embrace. Somewhere in their kisses and touches, Loki forgot that he was here to be the hated Jotun in the heir's bed. He forgot he was here to give Asgard what it detested. He forgot that he was here because he was angry at them all.

He looked up at Thor and stared, trembling fingers tracing Thor's mouth. Thor said nothing, smiling at Loki in that strange reassuring way Thor had smiled since they were boys. As if nothing mattered. As if by will alone he could make all things right. As if any moment now, he would once again pull up the bedsheets over their heads and hide them away from everything awful. It made something hurt deep in Loki's chest. Sentiment, he thought, rearing up for another kiss.

In the morning, Loki awoke entangled in the same red blanket as Thor. Loki lay on his stomach, Thor draped across half his body, his arm heavy across Loki's waist, fingers loosely curled against the bed. Loki slowly twisted and turned under Thor, leaving them pressed up against each other for a moment before Loki slowly moved Thor onto his back, just as he heard someone enter the outer chamber.

“My lord, the hunt master is here.”

“Send him through,” Loki said, calling over his shoulder as Thor stirred beside him, Loki's hand idly going to soothe him by stroking back his hair as he also reached for the blanket with his other hand, pulling it back to cover his behind, just as someone entered the room and presumably stopped in surprise.

Keeping the blanket in place, he twisted around to see Balli, staring and dumbstruck. Loki let go of the blanket and held up a finger to his lips. “Speak softly, if you will, the prince sleeps. He's somewhat exhausted.”

Balli's mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed, keeping his tone quiet, “The horses are ready, my lord. Everyone has assembled in the courtyard.”

“I'll wake Thor and send him down in due course,” Loki said with a smile, watching as Balli frowned in Thor's direction, his pure prince hidden from view. Loki feigned worry. “Are you quite all right? You seem rather unwell.”

Balli shook his head and said. “I am well, my lord. If I may, I'll take my leave of you.”

“By all means,” Loki said smoothly, watching Balli make a hasty retreat. Grinning, Loki turned back to Thor and said, “Thor. Wake up.”

Thor shifted, scowling. He cracked his eyes open into blue slits which soon widened in conjunction with the smile spreading on his face. Eyes on Loki, he stretched bodily in what Loki found a thoroughly indecent and distracting manner, ending the stretch by reaching for Loki's arm and pulling him close enough for a short kiss.

“Your hunt master and friends are waiting for you so you can all go and kill some dumb creatures for sport,” Loki said. “You should dress.”

“In a bit,” Thor said, one of his hands slipping under the blanket and slapping Loki's thigh. He gave Thor a half-hearted look of rebuke. Thor grinned and said, “I had something else in mind first.”

Loki snorted. “What about your friends?”

Thor grabbed Loki with both arms, rolling him onto his back and telling him, “They can wait. I can't.”

There it was, the cooling balm of satisfaction spreading across Loki's heart, which was still sore with the burn of words he had heard the night before. The future king of the realm lay satisfying himself in the arms of the creature the Asgardians feared and hated most: their unwanted Jotun son.


	11. Chapter 11

“We're here.” 

Loki blinked out of his trance and turned to see Stark waiting by the hatch door, beyond which everything seemed dismally grey and dark. Loki stood and walked the few steps it took to be by Stark's side before following him out and descending the steps from the plane. They were taken from inside the large cavernous space in which the plane had landed, something like the belly of a beast, flanked by Fury's men, black-clad and armed with weapons and grim expressions. Outside it were dimly lit narrow corridors until they had ascended a few levels where light began to filter through and Loki could make out windows in the rooms on either side of the brighter halls.

There was a constant hum in the air, a buzz. The very ground seemed to be constantly vibrating. When he and Stark were led into the heart of the building, it all became clear. Loki frowned, looking across the control room at the view on the other side of the windows. Blue sky as far as the eyes could see. “We're still flying.”

“Glad to see you could join us.” Loki turned around to see Fury walking into the room, Rogers and Romanoff behind him. She looked slightly irritated and he looked openly relieved. 

“What? No hugs?” Stark asked, stepping towards Fury.

“I _will_ shoot you,” Fury said flatly.

Stark held up his hands. “Boundaries. Totally understand. You're keeping yourself for the right gal, I get it.”

Fury said, “Captain? This is Tony Stark. Stark? Steve Rogers. And I believe you and Agent Romanoff have already met.”

Stark moved towards Rogers, hand outstretched as he nodded at Romanoff. “Yeah, only she was someone else at the time. Good to see you being you for a little longer this time.”

“Pity I can't say the same,” Romanoff said with a smile.

“Harsh,” Stark said, turning to Rogers who shook his hand, scowl on his face. “Captain Rogers.”

“Mr. Stark,” Rogers said with a polite nod, scowl deepening as Stark frowned at their interlocked hands, Stark's other hand giving Rogers' arm a squeeze.

“Wow. That really is all you, huh?” Stark said, stepping back from Rogers, oblivious to the look that was being aimed at him. He clapped his hands together and looked at Fury, “So, what have we got here?”

Fury looked at Loki who stood with his mouth glued shut. “Questions mostly.”

Fury pointed a finger at all four of them and beckoned them towards him, turning on his heel to leave the room. They followed, Rogers joining Loki at his side while Stark fell into step with Romanoff, his voice low and what Loki was beginning to recognise as characteristically teasing.

“You all right?” Rogers asked as they followed Fury down a corridor. “We saw what happened. I know you keep throwing around the word god, but when that car hit you, we thought that was it.”

Loki smiled. “Why, Steven, I'm touched you care.”

“That's kind of the idea behind friendship, Loki,” Rogers said, giving him a stern look.

Loki wanted to laugh. He, father of destroyers apparently, might have been mourned by this man. This man who had such lofty notions of honour. He would have mourned the father of world-devourers. It was hysterically funny and it left Loki lost for words. He walked on mutely until they reached the large meeting room, filtering into it one by one and taking up seats around the large round table.

Fury didn't sit. He stood, hands on hips, long leather coat pushed back and one eye glaring with the power of ten, right at Loki. “Let's start with what the hell you were thinking when you turned up in front of that damn snake.”

“I was curious,” Loki said flatly. 

“Curious?” Fury asked, brow raised. “Your curiosity could have got hundreds of people killed.”

“But it _didn't_ , did it? It got one man killed. One foolish human who thought he had a chance against a creature of magic.” Loki shook his head and murmured. “No armour. No skill. No strength. Am I to blame for such idiocy? Why couldn't he have just stayed away?”

“Why didn't you?” Stark asked. “You didn't exactly have an easy time squaring up to it either.”

Loki looked to his right where Stark sat eyeing him with accusation. Loki smiled and said, “I'm still alive.”

“Yeah. You're welcome, by the way,” Stark said.

Loki snorted and looked at Fury who finally sat down at the head of the table on Loki's left. “I take it the captain has explained the reason for my curiosity.”

“He has,” Fury said with an expression that clearly communicated how unimpressed he was at this time.

“Um, share with the class, please?” Stark said. Loki turned towards him to find him tapping away at his computer tablet. 

When Loki looked back at Fury, the director appeared to be waiting for Loki to do the sharing. Loki sighed and said, “I created a portal using dark magic, magic which appears to have fertilised the waters of a prison harbouring a beast that devours worlds, which incidentally followed me back through the portal and took refuge in my enchanted staff, cannibalizing its magic for sustenance before slithering on its merry way to wreak carnage on your fair planet.”

Stark's fingers had stopped their dance across the screen of the tablet, plunging the room into absolute silence before Stark suggested, “You might want to follow that up with an apology. Maybe a fruit basket.”

Loki smiled at him. “Is that your chosen method? First destruction, then fruit?”

Stark smiled back, while Fury told them, “Gentlemen. Kindly shut the hell up.”

“Look, I think maybe we ought to focus on how we stop this thing,” Rogers said. “We know what it is, how it got here and what it wants. That's got to be enough to figure out a way to stop it, right?”

Stark turned his tablet screen to show everyone a series of colourful blinking lines that probably made no sense to anyone, if their faces were anything to go by. He turned it to Loki and said, “The sensors on my suit picked up these readings. These spikes here are bursts of gamma radiation.”

“Dangerous?” Romanoff asked.

“Not yet,” Stark said. “This thing gets bigger though-”

“And angrier,” Loki said. Stark frowned at him. “I could feel bursts of energy escaping from the creature. They seemed to coincide with its shape shifting and its rage.”

Romanoff looked at Fury and said, “Big angry shape-shifting gamma monster. Don't we already have one of those?”

Fury stared at Romanoff. Loki could have sworn that one eye of his lit up like a light. “We could use Dr. Banner on this. I'm sure he knows a thing or two about gamma radiation.”

“Yeah, not to mention he has that little extra we might need to square up against snake monsters,” Stark said slowly. 

“Let's just work with the data you have from your sensors for now,” Fury said, before pulling a tight a smile and adding, “That's if you're staying, of course.”

“Are you kidding? With Banner on the guest list?” Stark snorted. “Damn straight, I'm staying.”

“Okay, good. We're getting somewhere,” Fury said. “Captain, you were talking about tracking this thing.”

Rogers took out a folded map from his pocket and laid it out on the table just as Stark wheeled closer to Loki. He was clearly about to say something else, but was distracted by the map, muttering, “Holy... two dimensional rendering.”

Rogers frowned from across the table as he smoothed out the map. “Is something the problem?”

Romanoff smirked. “Mr. Stark has issues understanding anything not shiny or blinking with pretty lights.”

“I like pretty lights, so sue me,” Stark said, before nodding to Rogers. “Go ahead, Captain Frost. What have you got?”

Rogers scowled at Stark, before his mouth loosened into a strange smile which Loki knew not to be a happy or amused one. He looked at Fury, nodding to a neat and straight black line drawn across the map, one that already had Stark attentive and quiet. 

“Our snake is headed on a definite trajectory. I don't think it's moving forward in a random straight line. It's moving towards something,” Rogers said. He looked at Romanoff and said, “It clicked when you mentioned where Agent Barton is.”

“Where's Agent Barton?” Stark asked, looking at Rogers.

“With Agent Coulson,” Romanoff said, looking at Loki. “In New Mexico.”

Everyone turned to Fury as Stark asked, “And, what is in New Mexico?”

Fury was looking at the map for a long silent moment. With a sigh, he said, “We don't know yet. We've got people down there protecting it and taking readings from it, but we have no idea what it is.”

“Do you think it might be connected to the snake?” Rogers asked Loki.

Loki thought about it, thought of the pull he felt in the direction the serpent was moving. What did a world-devouring snake move towards? Who was it moving towards? Loki closed his eyes, shaking his head. When he looked at Rogers, he quietly answered, “It's possible that something has the creature determined to reach it.”

“Can we see it?” Stark asked. Fury nodded and tapped his earpiece, issuing a command to someone as Stark turned to Loki. “Snake mention anything about New Mexico in your little tête-à-tête?”

“Yes. It said, I'm going to New Mexico,” Loki said, giving Stark a sullen and bored look, which made Rogers' mouth twist in an effort to suppress a smile. 

“I'm sure Loki would have told us,” Rogers said, Stark still drilling holes into Loki with his inquisitive gaze. “Right?”

“You _have_ told us everything there is, haven't you?” Fury asked.

“Everything,” Loki said quietly. “Other than the awful names the creature has chosen for itself.”

Romanoff shrugged and said, “It could be useful to know what this thing is calling itself. All intel is good intel.”

“Sure. If we know its name we can throw it a bone and make friends,” Stark said.

“Or talk to it,” Rogers said. “One to one. Maybe if we use its name, _it_ will listen to us.”

“That's a really sweet theory, Cap,” Stark said, “But that thing is not interested in listening.”

“Stark's right,” Loki said. “The beast only wants to devour, not talk.”

“Agreed,” Stark said pointing at Loki. “Having said that... what are the names?”

Loki was quiet. The names. He knew the names. He had read them amongst the stories of sewing up mouths and rocks and shackles and chains. 

“Loki?” Rogers gently urged.

Loki grimaced. “Jörmungandr and Fenrisúlfr. Those were the names it gave me.”

“No wonder its so mad. I'd be mad with names like those,” Stark said, tapping away at his tablet once more. “How the hell do you even spell that?”

Loki ignored Stark's muttering as a technician entered the room and handed Fury a computer tablet. Rogers asked Loki, “You ever hear those names before?”

Loki's hands closed into tight fists against his thighs. He hadn't heard those names before, but he had seen too similar names written on pages about long gone gods. Those books in the library, there were names in them, just likes these.

Loki shook his head. “Jörmungandr the serpent and Fenrisúlfr the wolf. Lokidaughter and Lokison. The creature appears to have appointed me as its father.”

Rogers frowned. “Could that be... good?”

“Oh yes,” Loki said with a smile. “It means I'll be devoured last.”

“Gee. Lucky you,” Rogers said.

“Gee,” Stark snorted and laughed quietly as Fury passed the tablet to Romanoff. Loki eyed Stark's fingers tapping and sliding across the screen of his tablet, until they went very still. Stark was reading, utterly engrossed. Then he looked up at Loki and passed him the tablet. “You can read that, right?”

Loki nodded taking the tablet, his eyes drawn to a rather crude illustration of a green serpent wrapped around a blue world. Below it was a lengthy block of text. Loki knew the words there. Words he had heard from the mouth of the creature. Jörmungandr, the serpent. Fenrisúlfr, the wolf. Angrboða, the mother of Loki's children. 

_Thor shall put to death Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent, and shall stride away nine paces from that spot; then shall he fall dead to the earth, poisoned by the venom which the snake has blown at him._

Loki stared at Stark through wide burning eyes, the tablet gripped tight in his hands. Stark said, “These are the names it told you, right? Did it tell you its mother's name?”

“Angrboða,” Loki said quietly. “It said the name of its mother was Angrboða.”

Looking away from Stark, Loki found both Rogers and Romanoff in quiet conversation over the tablet in Rogers' hand. Rogers then slid the tablet across the table to Stark who picked it up, his eyes flicking to Loki who had simply frozen. Stark looked at the tablet, scowling at it for a moment and shrugging in Fury's direction before handing the tablet to Loki.

Loki took it and saw the image. He closed his eyes, jaw clenching tight. When he opened his eyes again, the image had not changed. It was still Gungnir, standing upright from its place embedded in a rock. The serpent's presence was one thing, but its presence along with Gungnir. Loki's heart was suddenly beating too fast, making bile rise up in his throat.

“You know what it is, don't you?” Fury asked. 

“The spear of Odin,” Loki replied.

“What does that mean?” Romanoff asked, unusually careful in her tone. 

“A weapon of great power, one that can only be wielded by the ruler of Asgard.” Loki frowned, shaking his head. “It was in Thor's possession when I saw it last.”

“Thor. The guy who will put the Midgard Serpent to death, Thor?” Stark asked. “So, that's good news right?”

“How?” Fury asked.

“Well, good for the slayer of the serpent,” Stark said. “Maybe Thor's supposed to use this thing, considering he's the only one who _can_ use it.”

“What?” Rogers asked, frowning at Stark.

“There's a story here that says Thor kills the Midgard Serpent,” Stark said carefully, watching Loki as he spoke. “Maybe less of a myth and more of a... prediction.”

Loki gave Stark a sharp look. “And do you know the outcome of this slaying? Did you read all of your little Midgardian tale?”

Stark nodded and quietly said, “Countless lives saved.”

“At the cost of the life of Odin's most precious son,” Loki said. “Do you want to know how many worlds Asgard would see ruined before it would see Thor dead?”

“Asgard or you?” Stark asked coldly. For some bizarre reason, it made Loki's eyes flick to the glow in the middle of Stark's chest. 

“Loki, no one's looking for a sacrificial lamb,” Rogers said quietly. 

“Then what?” Loki asked. “What _do_ you want?”

“A way to close the door you opened,” Stark answered before Rogers could even open his mouth. “You brought this thing here. It's up to you to help us get rid of it. Whatever it takes.”

“What happens if the snake finds the spear?” Romanoff asked. Loki's mouth felt stuck. She said, “It's drawn to power. Power makes it grow, gives it strength. What happens when it finds this spear?”

“It will feast well,” Loki said with a tight smile, feeling his insides slowly unravelling for this stupid little world. So what, he tried to tell himself, so what if Midgard became snake fodder? His smile wavered and dropped.

“We can't let that happen,” Fury said. “We need to get that snake before it can get to its all you can eat buffet.”

Rogers nodded. “Since we're pretty sure where it's going, I think it's a worth heading it off before it reaches the spear.”

Stark countered. “Or we get the spear before the snake can get to it.”

“A weapon that can only be wielded by the ruler of Asgard,” Romanoff said slowly, looking at Loki. 

Stark shrugged. “Then we find a way to _wield it_ , or we find the guy who can do the wielding. If the spear is here, he has to be here too.”

Loki pushed away from the table, standing and seeking an exit from the room, almost stumbling towards the door, ignoring the voices around him as he made to leave.

“ _I'll_ go after him,” Rogers snapped at someone as Loki left the room and stalked down the long dark corridor. 

He went into the first room with an open door, locking it behind him. Inside, another door opened into a small bathroom, the mirror and sink inside Loki's direct line of vision. He went towards it, drawn to his pale reflection. Gripping the sink, he stared into his own eyes, head whipping to the side as he heard knocking on the door to the room behind.

“Loki!” Rogers called from the other side of the door, still knocking. Then there was no sound for a moment, other than the Loki's heart knocking inside his chest. “You going to run from this? Like you did from Asgard?”

Loki turned to stare at the door. “I'm not running.”

“Then what? Open the door. Talk to me,” Rogers pleaded. “Loki, we need you.”

Loki blinked at the door. His eyes dropped to the floor as he stared blankly in thought. When his thoughts congealed into some form, he looked back at the door and said, “Stark's right. I brought the beast to this realm. I have to be the one who drives it away.”

“What does that mean?” Rogers asked. 

“It means you clear the path of the beast. Keep civilians out of its way. You try and stop it from feeding and you keep it moving forward,” Loki said. 

“What about you?” Rogers asked. “What are you going to do?”

“I have an errand to run. I won't be gone long,” Loki said, turning around and pressing his hand against the mirror and casting the enchantment of flight just as Rogers kicked open the door, in time to see Loki vanish.

# *

Loki cast his spell to seek out Gungnir, the image from Fury's datapad clear in his mind. His magic flicked through countless reflections, before he found the spear on a security monitor, its presence causing a disruptive flickering. The last time Loki had seen Gungnir, the spear had been in Thor's angry grip as Loki had stood watching him walk away. Now it stood embedded in a dark piece of rock in a small white enclosure with dirt on the ground.

Loki stepped into a SHIELD corridor, instantly turning in the direction of the spear. Powerful magic was tugging at Loki, pulling at him, drawing him closer. Walking in shadows and illusions, Loki found the enclosure quick, stepping into it without trouble as he looked up to see SHIELD agents going about their business on the upper levels surrounding Gungnir's cage. They didn't see him standing there. To them he was a dark flutter in the corner of their eye. 

Loki turned his full attention to Gungnir, stepping closer, reaching out for it. His fingers stretched out and then curled back as he frowned. Something was not quite right. Loki straightened, eyed the spear with suspicion before stubbornly reaching out to take it in hand. Power thrummed through Loki as sparks exploded between his hand and the spear, making him cry out in surprise and pain. He would have fallen to his knees had his hand not remained stuck to the spear. 

Grimacing in pain, Loki pulled at his hand to separate it from the spear as a sluggishness came over him. Loki lurched to the side, laughing. Everything in his vision was tilting up and down, nausea welling up in his gut. His legs were turning to water, his hand burning and still stuck to the wretched spear in his reluctant grasp. Loki closed his eyes and fell to his knees, still quietly laughing.

“A trick,” he said breathlessly, his eyelids becoming heavy as a syrupy magic made its way through his veins. “I've been tricked.”

The ground beneath him was beginning to shake. Laughter turning to a sudden growl, he gave his hand another painful tug, grunting in frustration. A black fog was quickly descending over him and the spear was vibrating in Loki's hand with some vigour. Loki groped for spells and enchantments in his mind, something to counter the bond that had him stuck to this spear. It was to no avail. His mind felt like it was filled with the same mist that was weighing down his limbs and forcing his eyes shut. A few shallow breaths and Loki was falling under a canopy of black.


	12. Chapter 12

As soon as he awoke, Loki knew he was no longer on Midgard. His senses felt sharp, the air on his skin was like purest water, soothing and temperate. It was quiet, so peaceful he had to concentrate to hear the noises in the distance; a hum of energy to his left, the sound of nature to his right, and close by the flickering of flames in their torches. This was home. This was Asgard.

He sat up, finding himself in his bed and chambers, his coat and boots removed. Someone had opened the balcony doors to let in the cool evening air, framing the starry mists on the other side. Loki sat there staring at the sky from his bed. It seemed like a strange foreign thing, so many hues hanging over Asgard, as if no other sky had the right to be so beautiful.

“I hope you're feeling better.” Loki turned his head to find his mother elegantly seated in the corner of the room. She looked resplendent in her white silk dress which was delicately embroidered with golden thread. What a welcome sight she was. “I know you've been unwell.”

Loki looked down at the blue tinge that still marked his hand, catching a glimmer of gold around his wrist. He frowned and brought his hand up, tilting his head to blink at a golden cuff. It was snug, impossible to have been slipped over his hand, and there appeared no way to open it, no joins or catches. It was humming with an intensely focused magic, the same magic which Loki had encountered just before blacking out on Midgard. 

He looked at Frigga. “That was a fine illusion. Even Father might have thought it was Gungnir before him.”

“An illusion, a seeking spell, _and_ a beacon,” Frigga corrected him as he smiled. “First a spell to find you, one that could get only so close because of the wards you used to keep yourself hidden – well done, by the way. Second, an object of Asgard rooted on Midgard, charmed to call out to your magic; the beacon. Third, an illusion to attract my curious son.”

Loki was grinning. “A trap.”

“You are bound to the magic of Asgard as we all are, you would be unable to resist its calling. Sooner or a later, you would seek out the beacon. It seemed like the best solution,” Frigga said confidently, while Loki thought of her beacon, calling on his magic. He had certainly felt the pull of something, something that had been moving ahead of him towards his mother's beacon.

Loki looked at her, his mind on Midgard, magic and serpents. “If you're casting spells, Father must still be in the Odinsleep.”

His mother gave him a nod, watching him carefully. When he remained quiet, she said, “Will you not ask after Thor?”

“I suspect he's sulking because you found me when he or Heimdall couldn't,” Loki said as he slowly got out of bed and started pulling on his boots. “Or perhaps he is merely indifferent to my return.”

“If you think Thor could ever be indifferent to you, then you do not know him very well,” Frigga said curtly. Loki went to the balcony, breathing in long and deep. The evening sky looked ethereal to the point of boring. A dash of blue wouldn't have gone amiss. “He is not on Asgard.”

Loki stilled. Calmly he asked, “Midgard?”

“No,” Frigga said. “Not Midgard.”

Loki closed his eyes and let out a breath, his hands loosening around the balcony railing he hadn't even realised he was clutching. He turned around with a smile, fully composed, pointing to the cuff around his wrist. “Why am I tethered like a child?”

“Perhaps because you ran away like one,” Frigga said, annoyingly patient as she rose from her chair, walking into the middle of the room.

Loki arched a brow at the response. “So I am to be shackled to Asgard. You may want to tell your king that I have committed no crime to warrant such treatment.”

“This is not Thor's command,” Frigga said. “It is my doing alone.”

Loki walked past Frigga, picking up the long black coat that had been stripped from him and had been left on his bed. He put it on, asking Frigga, “Where is he? I would speak with the king who allows me to be kept prisoner in my own home.”

“Jotunheim,” Frigga said simply. “He is on Jotunheim.”

Loki's hands came away from straightening his coat, slowly coming to his sides. He turned to look at Frigga. “Jotunheim. Why?”

“Thor sent out word about your disappearance and some time after you left we received message from Muspelheim that the Svartálfar knew something of your whereabouts. Thor and his friends went to Svartalfheim,” Frigga said quietly. “However, Thor did not return with them. They were all ambushed by the Jotuns and he was taken.”

Loki stared at his mother, his face locked in a grimace of bewilderment. “ _Taken_. How in the name of Bor does anyone manage to just _take_ Thor?”

“The Jotuns knew he would be there,” Frigga answered, somehow remaining composed and still. “They knew exactly how to capture him.”

“What does Laufey say?” Loki asked.

“He accuses Asgard of casting you out. He will speak with no one but you,” Frigga said, unable to completely conceal the contempt she clearly felt for the Jotun leader. “He denies the capture of Thor. The council is now speaking of war with Jotunheim.”

Loki lifted up his hand and told Frigga, “Remove this. I am leaving for Jotunheim.”

“There is no need to remove it,” Frigga said. “It will not stop you from going to Jotunheim.”

“Then what is its purpose?” Loki asked, looking at his mother in confusion. She remained tight-lipped. “Mother-”

“You belong here, on Asgard,” Frigga said, almost snapping. She had that look in her eyes, the one that said he could try as much as he liked, but she would not be swayed.

“Belong, Mother?” Loki asked her softly. “As a prisoner or an ornament?”

“As consort to the king. It does not mean you stand decoratively at his side like an _ornament_. It means you protect him. Guide him,” Frigga said sharply. Then softening her gaze, she reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “You must cast away thoughts of returning to Midgard.”

“Why? Why Midgard?”

“ _Because_ ,” Frigga said, clearly frustrated. “I am telling you so.”

“I can't,” Loki said resolutely.

“Why?” Frigga demanded. “What is on Midgard that you would deny your own mother?”

Nothing, Loki thought. There was nothing on Midgard but mud. It was a world peopled by primates still fighting for their pieces of dirt. In the absence of any real god, these mammals had created their own in the guise of humans playing gods. So much about Midgard seemed crass, crude, ugly and weak. How easily one could become a god and a king there, how easily one could make them all kneel. How easy it would be... if people like Rogers were not so ready to fight, right to the bitter end. Rogers would die fighting the beast, and he would think nothing of it. Fool.

“There are people on Midgard I would not see harmed,” Loki quietly told his mother. 

“Why does it fall to you to keep them from harm?” Frigga asked, staring at him in confusion.

“The beast that awaits to devour Midgard is of my making,” Loki said, swallowing. “So I must be the one to put an end to it.”

Loki couldn't place the look on his mother's face. He thought it was fear, but what reason did she have to be afraid? She asked him, “What beast?”

Loki shook his head. “There is no time for this.”

“Make time,” Frigga demanded. He was right. That look in her eyes; she was afraid. “What beast?”

“A creature imprisoned between realities that fed from my magic to come to Midgard and take shape. If I do not find a way to destroy it, this thing, this serpent, will consume everything,” Loki told her.

Frigga stepped back, moving away from Loki, her eyes taking on a dazed look. She blinked and whispered, “Jörmungandr.”

Frigga turned away from him, but he could see her staring at the mirror on the wall opposite, her face blank and pale. Loki quietly murmured, “How could you possibly know its name?”

“Loki.” Frigga shook her head, looking tired and defeated. “Why did you go to Midgard? You had _no_ reason to go there. You do not know what you have set into motion.”

Loki moved to stand between her and the mirror. “How do you know the name of the serpent?”

Frigga's glassy gaze turned to him. “I thought I was being clever. I thought I was protecting you.”

Look frowned, shaking his head in frustration. “I don't under-”

“What is the price of dark magic?” Frigga asked, as if he was a boy again, being asked to repeat his mother's words, burning them into his brain to learn. 

“You see the things you shouldn't see,” Loki answered. 

Frigga nodded, giving him a tight smile. “Always.”

“You saw something. About me and Midgard,” Loki said. Frigga was shaking her head, as if denying it to herself, not looking at Loki. Loki took her by her arms, holding her tight. “What did you see?”

Frigga's fingers curled into the material of his coat, rigid against his forearms. She looked torn between answering his question and running away from him. “Your father didn't want to tell you, about where you came from. Neither did I. We thought it best to raise you as our own, as Thor's brother.”

“Something changed your mind,” Loki said with a nod, his heart beginning to thump hard in his chest. “Something you shouldn't have seen.”

“Loki,” Frigga protested, trying to turn away out of his grasp.

Loki held fast, pulling her back harshly. His voice shook as he asked, “What was it? _Tell_ me.”

Frigga shook her head. Loki gave her a pleading look and she stilled in his hold. “I didn't want you to know the truth, but I feared you would find it anyway, and I knew it would break your heart, I _knew_. I had to be certain we were making the right choice. So I... one day, when your father was away, I cast the runes that call upon the fates themselves.”

Loki's grip on Frigga's arms loosened. “And what? You saw me creating a monster?”

“No,” Frigga said too quickly, her eyes looking somewhere past him, as if she could see the beast, see it closing in. Then she sighed, her body losing that solid composure. “Yes.”

Loki let her go, but Frigga grasped his hand and gently led him to the mirror. Holding onto him, she pressed her free hand against the mirror and whispered words he knew were used to summon the reflections of old spells. Loki's fingers curled as he contemplated pulling away from Frigga's hold. She looked back at him and Loki shook his head, filled with childish fear. His mother gave him a determined look and pulled on his hand until his fingers touched the cool glass and a burst of smoke exploded in the mirror like ink in water, turning it black.

_Wind the thread, sister,  
Catch as I throw,  
Spin and sing, my sister,  
Around the ash tree, let it go._

An echo of an old song warbled in Loki's head, everything around him shattering and falling to the floor in tiny pieces, leaving behind a landscape of endless black. Loki turned in the same circle in which his mother had once turned, before looking down at the pieces of broken mirror she had seen. It was her who knelt on the floor and reached out to tentatively touch the broken shards. It was her frightened reflection he saw spanning across all the pieces as she watched fractured images morphing from one to the next. It was her hand that reached for the broken piece that showed Odin weeping over the body of his son.

His mother hadn't been able to look at anything else, stuck on this one image, whilst others glittered around her, images almost trying to catch her attention. She had watched this one single scene break free from the others, moving close to her until Loki now found himself inside it, standing over Odin cradling Thor. Loki tilted his head at Thor's still form, his eyes travelling over the marks of battle, bruising on his face, blood colouring his hair. A few steps away lay Mjölnir, a dead weight still tilting towards its master, as if hopeful that it might once more be wielded. 

_“No,”_ Loki heard Odin, his voice sounding as if it was trapped at the bottom of an ocean. Loki grimaced, his breath leaving him, as he heard his father say, _“Not my boy.”_

Loki reached out, only to find that he was now watching Thor slipping away from him fast even as he reached out to catch him. Near them was the beast, the devourer, it's undulating form hovering over Asgard. Loki met Thor's gaze and heard his own voice whisper, _“I'm sorry, brother.”_

He could hear Thor scream out his name, so loud he shut his eyes, the sound filling his head. When he opened them again, Loki was hanging, his hand holding onto Gungnir as he searched his father's face in desperation. Again, it was his voice. _"I could have done it, Father. I could have done it! For you! For all of us!"_

_“No, Loki,” Odin said, with a strange look of failure on his old stubborn face._

Loki was falling, grappling with space, trying to find a place into which he could slip away, feeling his skin burn with desperate magic. The cosmos spun and tilted around him until up seemed like down and down seemed like up and he was clutching at dirt, his knees on hard ground. He shook with need, this place, this void, making him hunger. This was how he was being tamed, being tortured, by being put into a state of constant craving. He felt so hollow, he could barely concentrate on the words spoken over him. 

_“The Tesseract has awakened. It is on a little world. A human world. They would wield its power...”_

A blinding light filled Loki's eyes, a searing pain running through his head, making him cry out in agony. His eyes fought to stay open, seeing him, another him, hair hanging long and lank, face pale and cold, lips parched and dry, and a smile slowly spreading with malice and mischief. His eyes were hooded, set in deep dark sockets. It was him, the spectre. Loki would have known him anywhere. He would have known the spectre were he hidden amongst a million other Lokis. Standing in front of Loki, he was silent now, but his eyes spoke volumes as Loki heard sinister words right inside his skull. 

_“You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.”_

The spell shattered and Loki found was staring at his own reflection, his fingers barely touching the mirror. His face seemed like a word that had been repeated so often it had lost its meaning. He couldn't recall if he had always looked this lost, this haunted, this pale. This afraid. He almost couldn't recognise himself.

“I thought I was cursed,” Loki whispered. “I thought, perhaps I was mad, when I saw him in my mirror, in my dreams.”

Frigga was casting him worried looks. “Loki, what are you saying?”

He turned to her. “You cast your runes here, on this spot, didn't you? It had to be my mirror for the spell to work. A mirror that would have me in its sight and know my reflection well.”

Frigga looked surprised. “You were asleep. I made sure of it.”

Loki shook his head, that night suddenly clear in his mind. “Dark magic, I think we'll both agree, doesn't exactly work the way you want it to. That night, when you cast the spell, I caught glimpses of your vision as I slept. Glimpses that played over and over in my dreams since, some in my waking hours. There was a face, my face, but... different. Your spell left ripples, left him in all my mirrors. Ripples I used to find him.”

That look of fear was back on her face. “Find who?”

“ _Him_. The one from the mirror. You thought the runes were showing you possibilities when they were showing you realities. What you saw that night are not things that might happen, they are things that _are_ happening and _have_ happened, and _will_ happen. What your spell didn't show you was _this_ reality. Because that is what dark magic does, it shows you what you shouldn't see, not what you want to see.”

Frigga blinked at Loki, giving the slightest shake of her head in denial, a flinch of objection. “No. The runes show roads, possibilities. Paths you can avoid.”

“Paths that have become realities for others,” Loki said. “Realities rippling out from all that we could do and all that we don't. My staying away from Midgard is no guarantee that you will avoid the paths you fear.”

“If you go to Midgard, Thor will follow you there,” Frigga said. “He will always follow you there. And I will lose you both.”

“The beast is a thing born of the same magic you used to cast the runes, magic that called upon echoes of the spectre from my mirror. It knows this place because the magic of Asgard is in its blood and it will come here following the beacon you sent for me. Once it has devoured Midgard, it _will_ come to Asgard.”

“Then we will fight it together,” Frigga said, a stubborn set to her mouth.

Loki nodded. “Yes, we'll fight it together to save Asgard. Like all the other fathers called Odin and all the other mothers called Frigga, you will decide to let Midgard fall, because this is the only precious realm.”

Frigga was silenced as Loki looked at her, not seeing her face, but the countless pasts, presents and possibilities in the pieces of a shattered mirror. The fates had wound his strings cruelly. Death and destruction seemed written into his very being, and his mother knew it. She knew he had the power to end everything, bring about the destruction of the cosmos itself. She knew he had the power to rule them all, as she stood there reading his face with clever eyes. Loki clenched his jaw tight, flicking his wrist. Frigga gasped and moved back when a chair flew across the room and smashed the mirror to pieces, along with the memories of any spell that had hid on its surface for so long.

“I've had my fill of mirrors,” Loki said. He turned to leave, only to be stopped by his mother who held his arm and turned him back around, taking his hand in both of hers. 

“This road, this _reality_. It cannot be the one where I lose my children,” Frigga said, her voice hard, a demand, not a request. “I won't have it, Loki, I won't. Do you understand me?” 

Loki let his fingers curl in her grasp as he nodded mutely, those embedded images in his mind still flickering away, Loki after Loki, mayhem after mischief. He pulled away from Frigga as the doors to the outer chamber opened. Both he and Frigga stepped out of his bedchamber together to find the stout watcher of Odin's spear, Sigurd, walking in with Gungnir in his hands. Loki felt his mother's hand on his back, gently urging him forward.

When he frowned at her in question, she said, “With your father still in the Odinsleep and Thor missing, the line of succession falls to you. Asgard is still in need of a king.”

Loki's head snapped back at the spear. Had it always been this golden and bright? It didn't look as though it was made of just magic and precious materials. It looked like a living thing, something that pulsed with life and warmth. Loki reached for it, feeling the thrum of power as his fingers stretched out to touch It. He remembered those broken shards of his mother's spell, he saw himself taking Gungnir many times and he could feel it, the power of this mighty weapon. What a king he could make.

“Is it true, Sigurd, that it is not the king who wields, Gungnir, but the spear that wields the king?” Loki asked, his eyes still glued to one of the mightiest weapons of Asgard, one of the mightiest wands.

“Gungnir is true to Asgard, Prince Loki,” Sigurd said, frowning at him. “It is loyal to one thing only. As must be the king.”

Loki's fingers curled into to his palm and he pulled back his hand, grinning at Sigurd. “Of course.”

It was hard to ignore all those realities, now stuck in his head like memories. He saw himself on thrones, he saw himself crowned many times, and he knew the feeling of Gungnir in his palm. He already knew what it was to be king. And what it wasn't. 

On the other hand... 

Loki grasped Gungnir, taking it and holding it out in front of him. “Well, if Asgard is need of a king, who am I to object?”

The guards in the hall and Sigurd all bowed before him. When he turned to look at Frigga, she bowed her head too. She smiled, but the map of her face still showed a terrain of unhappiness and worry. “Use care and wisdom in your judgements. You now act for all of us, my king.”

“Indeed,” Loki said, eyeing the spear before lazily pointing it at his mother. “And in my first act as king, I command that you remove this tether.”

How quickly that map of unhappiness changed to highlight the more angrier planes of Frigga's face. “As mother of the king, I respectfully refuse. Throw me into a dungeon if you will, you will hear no complaint.”

Loki grinned. “I had to try.”

Gungnir in hand, Loki walked away from both Sigurd and Frigga, his mother calling out to him as he neared the open doorway. “What are you doing to do?”

Loki looked at Gungnir and smiled, thinking of awful Midgard fairy tales, which Barton would find amusing, Romanoff would find ridiculous and Rogers would predictably find somewhat charming. “What every hero does, of course. Save the princess from the tower. Defeat the monster. Live happily ever after.”

His mother scowled at him, before she sighed and her face fell to leave her looking tired. “Please be careful.”

“I am King of Asgard, Mother,” Loki said, thinking of countless Lokis who would cause mischief with the very fates who wound the strings of their destiny. He held up Gungnir, peering at his distorted reflection in the metal of the spear. “I have nothing to fear.”

He smiled at her, bowing his head before leaving his chambers, Gungnir humming with purpose in his hand.

# *

On Midgard the beast was making its way to that spot where Frigga's beacon had landed. There, the serpent would find a potent trail of magic leading straight to Asgard where Thor was missing and Odin slept on. What an ideal situation many of his counterparts would have found this to be. The destruction of Midgard would be a moot point; it was the saving of Asgard in the absence of Thor that would earn Loki the crown, the birthright the spectre had craved so much.

_Yes, save Asgard_

It wasn't quite a voice, the words were not quite words. Rather, there was a strange hiss amongst Loki's thoughts as Gungnir seemed to vibrate in his hand, an almost unnoticeable sensation. Loki stopped in his tracks and looked at the spear. A smile spread across his mouth slowly. The kings of Asgard had always been far too adept at saving, defending and ruling Asgard, to the degree that other realms lived in darkness and dirt. It was no real wonder, not with Gungnir guiding their hands.

You'll have your way, Loki quietly thought at Gungnir, as you always do. It was why Asgard gleamed as the jewel in the crown, while other realms could only dream of greatness. I do this for Asgard, Loki thought, all that I do, I do for Asgard. Maybe he imagined it, but the spear seemed lighter in his grasp and not at all the weight Odin had always made it look. Yes, he thought calmly, Asgard will be saved, of that there is no doubt. 

Where to first, Loki thought, what was to be the first act? He hadn't even finished the thought when his feet stopped and he realised he had gone straight to that room where Thor often sat with his friends, spending whole evenings laughing at nonsense. There was no laughter tonight, just the quiet voices of Thor's little band of loyal warriors. 

“We would have heard something if Loki was back,” Fandral was saying. 

“I saw the queen headed towards his chambers,” Sif said. 

“Well... that's a good thing, isn't it?” Volstagg asked.

“Good?” Sif responded curtly. Loki couldn't help but smile.

“Laufey will not speak with anyone other than Loki,” Hogun clarified.

“Loki is the reason anyone has to speak to Laufey at all,” Sif said. Loki rolled his eyes, shaking his head. Sif was loyal to Thor to the point of idiocy. “If he hadn't disappeared, Thor would still be here.”

“Of course,” Loki said smoothly, stepping into the doorway, but keeping Gungnir under a veil of invisibility. “It's not as if the heir to the throne is reckless, arrogant and dangerous enough to assume he can walk in and out of any realm as if it were the property of Odin.”

“Loki,” Fandral said, standing up from the couch and staring at Loki. “So, it's true. You've returned.”

“Reckless?” Sif asked, going from shock to anger in less than a second. “Do you not think you were reckless in disappearing when Thor needed you most?”

“A king,” Loki said, unveiling Gungnir and bringing it in front of him, the bottom of the spear hitting the floor with a loud clang, “does not need anyone. That is why he is king.”

Thor's friends stared at Gungnir in silence. Sif was frowning, shaking her head as she looked at the spear and then at Loki, while Fandral's eyes shifted from one side of the room to the other in thought before looking at Loki again. Hogun's expression was unreadable, but his dark eyes were focused intensely on Loki, full of questions, full of doubt. 

Volstagg on the other hand, nodded at the spear and leaned over to whisper to Fandral, “Does that mean what I think it means?”

While Fandral shushed Volstagg, Loki lifted the spear to point at them all. 

“Your friend walked into a trap despite his precious warriors being right by his side, because he didn't _think_. He didn't plan. _Arrogance_.” Sif opened her mouth to speak, but Loki cut her off angrily. “ _I_ will make no such mistake.”

Loki gave them all a hard look and waited. Bull-headed as she was, Sif got down on one knee with her friends, her fist clenched over her chest in allegiance, the look on her face tight and bitter.

“My king,” Sif said, barely humouring him, “we would ask you allow us to accompany you to Jotunheim.”

Gungnir seemed to tremble in Loki's hand and he mentally shushed the spear, promising no action that might harm its beloved Asgard. Grinning, he asked, “Who said anything about going to Jotunheim?”

Thor's friends all stood up together. Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun were looking at Sif, perhaps surprised by the request. She ignored their looks and said, “To speak with Laufey, of course.”

“Laufey can wait,” Loki said.

Sif wore a thunderous scowl. “Thor is being held on Jotunheim-”

“The Jotuns have managed to subdue one king while another sleeps,” Loki said. “I have a duty to Asgard, therefore I must tread cautiously.”

Sif didn't say anything, but Loki saw the resolute look on her face. She had already decided to go to Jotunheim, with or without Loki. Behind her, Thor's other friends were still staring at him in shock, but they would soon enough follow her. Friendship, Loki thought, what a strange madness. Sif stiffly bowed her head and moved to leave the room.

“However,” Loki said as he held out Gungnir and blocked her path. “I _do_ require you to explain how despite the presence of the Svartálfar and Thor's precious warriors the Jotuns were simply able to steal him away from right under your noses.”

Sif stepped back, giving Loki a glare as Fandral cleared his throat and said, “Well, he wasn't exactly under our noses at the time.”

Loki arched a brow. “Oh?”

Hogun nodded thoughtfully. “We were instructed to wait while he spoke with Queen Alflyse in private.”

“Apparently she doesn't deal with... underlings,” Fandral said. 

Loki smiled at Fandral, not concealing even a grain of his amusement. “Did you see the Jotuns who took him?”

“No.” Sif shook her head, looking frustrated. “There was a breach in the Svartálfar's weapon's vault. Someone sounded the alarm and Alflyse ran out to tell us Thor had joined her guards and asked for us to follow.”

“By the time we reached the vaults,” Hogun said. “Thor was gone. So were the Jotuns.”

“And it's why father's councillors haven’t launched an attack against Jotunheim,” Loki said. “Alflyse has no proof the Jotuns took Thor.”

“And she has no interest in answering further questions,” Fandral said. 

“Unless they are posed by the king,” Loki said. 

“Unless they are posed by the king,” Fandral said with an unimpressed look, waving off the comment before its implication set in. He blinked, pointing at Loki. “Right.”

“You mean to go to Svartalfheim?” Sif asked, her expression part hope and part suspicion. 

“If the Jotuns found a way into Svartalfheim they will have left a trace,” Loki said. “It stands to reason that we should be able to follow it all the way to Thor.”

“If we find nothing?” Sif asked.

“Then we go to Jotunheim,” Loki told her, though it was clear in her eyes how much she didn't believe a word of what Loki was saying. Smiling at her, Loki said, “I'll see you all in the Bifröst dome at nightfall. Be there.”

They all bowed their heads in obedience, even if Sif and Hogun remained tight-faced. They had no choice to obey, Loki had given them little to no time in which they could disappear to Jotunheim to get themselves killed whilst looking for Thor. Of course, if they managed it anyway, that was neither here nor there. Loki had a plan, and he was damned if it wasn't going to work. 

Actually, both Asgard and Midgard were damned if his plan didn't work.


	13. Chapter 13

Heimdall was waiting for Loki in the opening of the dome, looking as stern as ever. Loki couldn't help but smile, despite the weight of heavy matters. “Gatekeeper.”

Heimdall's eyes flicked down to the spear in Loki's hand and back up. “My king.”

Loki grinned. “I could get used to be called that. _Especially_ by you.”

If Loki wasn't mistaken, Heimdall's eyes narrowed a fraction. “You have asked the Warriors and Lady Sif to travel with you to Svartalfheim. I do not see them.”

Loki rested one end of the spear on the ground, arching a brow at it as he nonchalantly told Heimdall, “I have other business first.”

“What kind of business?” Heimdall asked. 

Loki smiled and said, “I was not aware the king has to answer to anyone.”

As he stepped forward, Heimdall stepped in front, effectively blocking his path. Loki expected some kind of warning, momentarily seeing pieces of broken realities and every Heimdall who stepped in his way. Loki waited with patience.

“Tread wisely,” Heimdall said. “Asgard is fast running out of kings.”

“Is that a note of worry?” Heimdall stepped back, looking more bored than vigilant, eyes dead ahead. Loki grinned wide enough to crack his face in two. “Why, Heimdall, I'm touched.”

“Find him,” Heimdall said simply. “Find him and return him to Asgard.”

Loki gave Heimdall a long look. “Do you doubt that I might not?”

“Should I?” Heimdall rumbled.

Loki thought about it. “I'm not sure. It's been a strange few days.”

Heimdall snorted. “You speak in riddles, just like Odin.”

Loki smiled, feeling no humour. He gripped the spear tight, assessing it as he told Heimdall, “Riddles can hold a multitude of truths without exposing them, Heimdall. The language of the gods.”

“It's a language you speak well,” Heimdall said. They both silently looked at each other. Again, Loki thought he saw an entirely different Heimdall. One who looked upon Loki as one might an enemy. The way he was peering at Loki, it seemed Heimdall must have sensed something. 

Loki frowned at him and asked, “What do you see, Heimdall? Beyond these realms, what else can you see?”

Heimdall's bright eyes seemed to glow like newborn stars for a moment. He was frowning under his helmet, frowning hard. “It is not for me to see past the veil that separates these realms from the rest of the cosmos. Or for anyone else. Those who can see beyond the veil... should not have been looking.”

Loki considered Heimdall's not quite concealed advice in silence before nodding. “Wise words.”

“Words I once offered your mother,” Heimdall said thoughtfully. “Words I hope she heeded.”

“Oh, I'm sure she did. As we all know, the kings and queens of Asgard are beyond reproach.” Loki grinned and turned towards the dome.

“There is a thing made of magic that slowly devours Midgard,” Heimdall said. Loki stopped, looking dead ahead. “The queen has tethered you because-”

“She does not wish her son to perish,” Loki said quietly. “I know. He won't.”

“Sons,” Heimdall said. “She does not wish her _sons_ to perish.”

“Rest assured, I have no plan to endanger the lives of those precious to my mother.” The spear felt as light as a feather in Loki's grasp. He smiled and continued on. “Don't wait up.”

# *

“Asgardian!” came the clear warning as soon as Loki set foot on Jotunheim.

Before the growing ice on the tips of Jotun fingers could become knives, Loki threw back his hood and flashed his largest of grins. “If it's not too much trouble, take me to your leader?”

His request was met with a growl from one Jotun and silent simmering from another. Still, they led him away from open ground through the high ruins of the outer court, where Jotuns sat frozen like statues, down into long dark tunnels lit with bright crystal torches in the walls. Finally they entered a large cavernous space, an underground cave split across levels, vast and spacious, lit with hanging blue crystals. It was like Asgard inverted, turned inside out and upside down, under the ground instead of up towards the sky, dark instead of bright, but impressive all the same, considering that this was all but a shadow of whatever Jotunheim used to be.

Realising he was staring, he looked up at one of his guides and said with a smirk, “Love what you've done with the place.”

This, predictably, earned him another growl. The Jotuns took him down two levels and through another tunnel before they reached a large round chamber. There sat Laufey on a rigid rocky looking throne, lit by the light of a bowl of fiery blue crystals. When he saw Loki, he seemed to surge forward, eyes widening. He nodded to the Jotun who had brought Loki here and they swiftly left.

Loki stared at Laufey for a while, assaulted by images of himself blasting a burning hole in Laufey's chest, the knowledge that this was his father never once allowing his hands to tremble. Killing the Jotun he knew to be his father for the Asgardian who wasn't; it had been both sacrifice and gift, imbued with noble intentions gone to waste. Gungnir had been so light in his hands, such a willing participant. In the end it was Loki who had to let go of the spear, of Thor, Odin and Asgard, having banished the Jotuns from his mind, and the Asgardians from his heart. 

Only, not really _his_ heart, was it? It was the heart of another, the heart of that hollowed-eyed spectre.

“Loki,” Laufey said, his voice reverberating deep from his chest, dragging Loki back from those fractured memories.

Loki gathered his senses and walked into the chamber, standing in the center of a circular mosaic made of small black, white and blue tiles that built a picture of the cosmos beneath his feet. He tilted his head at the dotted patterning before looking up at Laufey. “I hope you will need no further proof of my existence.”

Laufey slowly leaned back, his body looking as though it had deflated somewhat. “No.”

“Are you quite sure?” Loki asked. “It wouldn't be the first time you failed to see me right in front of your eyes.”

Laufey's mouth twitched, eyes blinking lazily. “Child of the Allfather. You have traits that belong to the mother you never knew. Her words always carried a bite too.”

Loki's smile had fallen before he could remember to keep it in place. When he forced his old shield of a smirk back across his mouth, he knew it sat ill on his face. “I know my mother well enough.”

“Her name was-”

“ _Enough_... pleasantries,” Loki said tightly, cutting off whatever dull conversation Laufey was planning. “Is Thor on Jotunheim?”

Laufey's eyes were on Loki's face, flicking to his neck. Loki knew he had spotted that blue tinge, that remainder of how the Jotun in him surged at the smallest weakening of Asgardian magic. 

“You have known sickness recently,” Laufey said, eyes still on the patch of blue. 

“I asked you a question,” Loki said curtly.

“I asked questions too,” Laufey said. “Countless times I asked the Asgardians of your whereabouts. They also told me nothing.”

“I'm touched by your concern.”

“I was sent word of your exile,” Laufey said. “That the Asgardians sent you away.”

A grin began to break out across Loki's face, and then didn't. It didn't seem an impossible thing, did it? That perhaps even he could fall foul of Asgard. No, Loki had seen it for himself, how easily he could be that which did not belong in the golden realm. 

“I left,” Loki said absently. 

“Why?” Laufey asked, getting up from his throne to tower over Loki. 

Loki looked up at the Frost Giant. The ridges of his face which had once looked hard and threatening on closer inspection seemed more like the features of a haggard face. An old and tired face. “I no longer wished to be a pawn in your and Odin's game. It's... dull. Boring. _Beneath_ me.”

Laufey frowned. “You were born to rule this realm. Odin stole your destiny from you. I sought only to return it to you.”

“You sought to have an ally in the house of Odin,” Loki said. “A Jotun guiding the hand of a king. A pawn.”

A sharp smile spread across Laufey's face. “But I failed. For you would see the Jotuns destroyed as much as... your father.”

Loki chuckled quietly. “Tell me, who sent you word of my exile? It couldn't have been anyone from Asgard.”

“An ally,” Laufey said.

“The Svartálfar?” 

Laufey was frowning, his silence speaking volumes. “They sent news of Thor casting you aside and planning to make war with Jotunheim. That Asgard would use false claims to launch an attack.”

“Did you know they also accuse you of stealing Thor from Alflyse's palace? Those same Svartálfar who have made weapons for both Jotunheim and Asgard in previous battles.” Laufey's jaw was clenched, his long fingers gripping the armrests of his throne. Loki smiled. “I know. They're wonderfully devious, aren't they?”

“The Svartálfar,” Laufey said darkly. “They will pay for their deception.”

“The Svartálfar have a treaty with Asgard. You step foot on their maudlin little world without just cause and you'll be slaughtered. So far they are making claims they cannot support, which is why Jotunheim is still standing. Go to Svartálheim, and it's over.”

Laufey was still seething. “Then what would you have me do?”

“I would have you do nothing. _I_ will find Thor,” Loki said. “ _You_ will be ready for a nexus portal to open here on Jotunheim to receive us and to make sure Thor and his friends stay here, until I come, or send for them.”

Laufey smiled, tilting his head at Loki. “And why would I help you?”

“Well, firstly, to remain an ally of Asgard, and secondly,” Loki said, unveiling Gungnir and casting a golden aura into the dark of the chamber. “Because, this Jotun is only king until Thor returns to Asgard.”

Laufey was staring at the spear for a moment before his head snapped up to look at Loki, frowning so hard Loki thought his forehead might crack. He threw his head back and started to laugh. Loki gave him a narrow-eyed look, wondering what might happen when a Frost Giant went mad.

His laughter tapering off, Laufey said, “A Jotun on the throne of Asgard. Odin must weep even in his sleep.”

“Quite,” Loki said, waving Gungnir away from view. “Can I count on you? Or must Jotunheim only be a source of disappointment to me?”

Laufey snorted at what Loki had hoped was quite the elegant barb. “Why here?”

This time it was Loki who snorted. “Where else will a Jotun find an ally willing to keep an Asgardian _off_ the throne?”

“Why look for him at all?”

“He is Thor. I would have no one be his warden but me.” Laufey arched his ridged brow. Loki held out his arm and pulled up his sleeve to reveal the tether. “At least until I am free of this tether.”

Laufey was silent, his eyes fixed on the tether. His gaze was so intense, it was a wonder the tether hadn't simply fallen away. Laufey made a noise like a suppressed growl, a deep rumble in his chest. He was up on his feet, walking towards Loki. Loki shifted his gaze left and right, just in case he needed to make a quick exit. Laufey stopped before him, getting down onto one knee. Loki found himself staring at Laufey whilst the Frost Giant's gaze was trained on the tether. 

Loki began to move his arm back down, but Laufey grabbed his wrist in a tight hold. Loki instantly snapped at the Jotun. “Let go.”

But Laufey held fast. His hand was covering the tether, but also touching Loki's skin. Loki watched with detached horror as he saw his skin turning blue. That was him, the real Loki. Under Odin's magic, he was a Jotun in hiding. His skin was not quite the same blue as Laufey, but it was without a doubt blue, perhaps a mixture of Laufey and the Jotun mother who bore him. 

“Stop,” Loki said as cold also seemed to creep into him along with the colour. Laufey was freezing the tether, but it wasn't working. The thing around his wrist knew it was being tampered with and it was letting Loki know, filling him with Asgardian resistance to that Jotun ice. When his whole body felt a flush of both ice and fire, Loki grated out a painful, “ _Stop!_ ”

Laufey abruptly let go and Loki fell to the ground, curling up as he held his arm to his chest. The attempt to freeze the tether off had left him with a heavy ache that extended from his wrist to his chest, and left his lungs feeling empty of air. Loki took measured breaths and waited for the ache to fade. 

“This is not a thing that can be broken with force,” Loki said, his voice unsteady. He pulled his sleeve down, watching the blue of his skin fading away until his hand was pale again. “Help me to keep Thor away from Asgard, and maybe one day, I will help you to restore Jotunheim to its... former glory.”

Laufey was quiet for a long time. He surprised Loki by asking him, “And why... should I trust you, Odinson?”

Loki shakily got back up on his feet. He smiled in Laufey's direction, though it felt tight across his face, his mind sifting through stolen memories again, catching the smell of burning flesh, the taste of ash. “You can't. You shouldn't.”

He looked up at Laufey who seemed surprised by the answer, staring at Loki. A moment later his mouth tugged into a small sad smile, eyes lowered to the ground. “But I will.”

“Why?” Loki asked quietly. “Why would you do something so foolish?”

“For that reason of which you would not wish me to speak,” Laufey said.

Loki swallowed, nodding. “Blood?”

“You are my son,” Laufey said, his voice too soft for a Frost Giant, for those monsters feared by Asgardian children. “You are the cherished child of a mother who only held you once.”

Loki turned his back on Laufey, the air too thin in his lungs and his mouth too dry, his vision blurred. His lip curled, falling pitifully short of a sneer. “Sentiment.”

“Bring them,” Laufey said, his voice hard again, much more like him. Much better. “I will give you what you want.”

“And in return?” Loki asked.

“In return,” Laufey said, pausing for a lengthy moment. “Think of Jotunheim as your ally.”

Loki turned, frowning at Laufey. “Asgard and Jotunheim are presently still-”

“No,” Laufey said, turning the full intensity of his gaze on Loki. “ _Your_ ally. Whatever happens between our two realms, you will always have a place here. Know this and remember it. Remember it when you see the Casket of Ancient Winters and Odin tells you he took the power of a realm for its own good.”

“He has done what any king would for the good of his own realm,” Loki said. “Even if it means the destruction of another.”

Laufey looked at Loki for a long time, silent and still. Quietly, he said, “What a fine son Odin has. Defending his wrongs, just as the good son of a bad father must. Just as Odin once defended Bor.”

_I could have done it, Father... I could have done it... For you..._

The words of the spectre warbled in the depths of Loki's stolen memories. Beyond the veil, that hollowed-eyed spectre had tried to be what he thought was a good son, at the cost of being a bad brother, and lost everything. That spectre who felled a Frost Giant, not swayed by blood, nor the knowledge that Laufey was his father. 

“Go,” Laufey said, as Loki stared at him silently. “Before the Asgardians come looking for you.”

Loki looked at Laufey, his feet rooted to the ground. His jaw was working hard to remain clamped shut, but there were words dancing on the tip of his tongue, eager to leap out into the crisp air. In a thousand places there were a thousand Lokis who knew just what to say, while Loki stood here feeling short on the glamour of lies. I have killed you, he wanted to say, enough times to wonder if it's a part of my destiny.

“Loki?” Laufey asked, almost as trying to coax something out of Loki.

Loki dug around inside himself and found that perfect smile. “I'll be on my way. Good talk.”

Loki turned on his heel and strode out of the chamber, never looking back as he returned to the surface and walked through the ruins of Jotunheim, wondering how many people had to see their worlds plunge into darkness to make the golden realm shine.

# *

Heimdall was watching the bridge when Loki returned, his eyes fixed on the four figures riding towards the dome. Loki joined Heimdall at his side, waiting for the warriors.

“You kept yourself veiled from my sight,” Heimdall said. He looked at Loki. “Why?”

“It doesn't concern you,” Loki answered. 

“If it puts Asgard in danger, then it concerns me,” Heimdall said, adding, “My King.”

Loki smiled at Heimdall, someone else's memories bouncing around inside his skull. Memories of the spectre and another gatekeeper, battling each other. Loki grinned. “Your loyalties are divided, Gatekeeper, unlike mine. I act for Asgard, whereas you are acting as my mother's ears and eyes.”

“And what is so terrible you would keep it hidden from your mother?” Heimdall asked.

“That whether she wishes it or not, she will lose a son,” Loki answered quietly. “The fates have wound their strings tightly, Heimdall. It would be easier to uproot Yggdrasil than to pick apart the strings of our destinies.”

Heimdall was still for a moment before his mouth broke into a grin. Loki arched a brow at the gatekeeper, who said, “You leave alone something because it's destined? That is not the Loki I know.”

Loki smiled, watching Thor's friends dismount and approach, Sif leading with the sourest of expressions. “Perhaps it is time I changed my ways.”

“The stars would sooner shift in their orbits,” Heimdall said. “They are not as stubborn as the Asgardians.”

“But I'm not Asgardian, am I?”

Heimdall shook his head. “With your mother's wiles and the All-Father's stubbornness, you are more Asgardian than you know.”

Loki was saved from having to argue Heimdall's point when Sif stalked up to the both of them, stopping with an aggrieved look as she said, “You're here.”

“What an astute observation,” Loki said. “Pity you weren't so eagle-eyed when you lost the king.”

Sif's mouth clamped and stiffened before she opened it to reply. She gave him a sharp look as she said, “Trickery can fool even the sharpest of eyes.”

“Now _that_ , Lady Sif, really is an astute observation. You should think on it a while,” Loki said. Sif opened her mouth to express the question behind her frown, but Loki turned away and headed into the dome. “Come. Time's wasting and I have much to do. Gatekeeper, if you will.”

Heimdall gave Loki a slant-eyed look, but obliged, telling him. “I will watch for your return.”  
Loki smirked. “You can certainly try.”

# *

Svartalfheim was under the umbrella of night when they arrived, its black sky dotted with bright stars and the mists of countless galaxies. In the light of day, the rough rocky terrain would have been only slightly easier to navigate, the ground uneven and unstable. Loki conjured an orb of bright white light that hung before them, illuminating the path they needed to take up to the fortress carved into the side of an enormous mountain of black rock. Loki walked on ahead in silence, letting Thor's friends follow behind.

A few minutes later, Sif fell into step beside Loki. “What did you mean when you said I should think a while on trickery?”

“You're no fool.” Sif was quiet, deep in thought. Loki sighed impatiently. “You know trickery is at play.”

Sif nodded, her eyes shining bright with the light of the orb, her skin looking paler than usual. She looked like a future queen to Loki, the mother of future princes of Asgard. Where Loki would be part of pact and agreement, he wondered if one day Sif might be the consolation prize. Such were the politics of Asgard: only the very few had any real value. Kings of Asgard, Loki thought, they were the most valuable. Gungnir thrummed in agreement. 

“You believe this trickery is not of the Jotuns' making,” Sif said after a while.

“Inconceivable, is it not?” Loki asked, smiling at her. 

Sif looked away, eyes lowering in what might have been guilt. “If not the Jotuns, then who?”

“The Svartálfar,” Hogun said, falling into step on Loki's other side. Loki looked at him, Thor's friend frowning, turning his own thought over in his head.

“What?” Fandral called out from behind them, not sounding convinced. “No no no. Them and subdue Thor? I don't see it.”

“This is the home of the Dwarves who forged Mjölnir and Gungnir,” Hogun said. So the warriors did have a brain or two amongst them, Loki thought as he smiled. “They forged the mightiest of weapons.”

“Yes,” Loki said, “so what are the kings who wield the weapons to them?”

“Those were magic smiths of another age, _sire_ ,” Fandral said, sounding a bit too sure of himself. “When was the last time any of you saw another creation by the Svartálfar to rival the hammer and the spear? You know the stories.”

“Indeed,” Loki said with a nod. “Bor feared Dwarvish weapons might fall into the hands of the Jotuns, so he made a pact with the Svartálfar. He would remove the crotchety old king in power if those waiting to take his place would ensure the Dwarves responsible for the most powerful Asgardian weapons would, well, _disappear_.”

Sif was shaking her head. “Stories spread by those who opposed Bor.”

“Perhaps,” Loki said. “But then, a realm such as Asgard could not have been built without the bloodshed of at least a few innocents. No powerful realm ever is.”

“I have fought many times for Asgard, and it was never for the glory of Asgard. It was for the good of all realms.” 

Loki rolled his eyes, stopped walking, and turned to look at a very annoyed Volstagg, the others doing the same. “You don't believe the stories, I take it.”

Volstagg shook his head, scowling behind his big bushy beard. “I most definitely and certainly do not. Those stories were spread by the Dark Elves so the Dwarves would turn against Asgard. They wanted Dwarve magic for themselves. Who would be rid of such skilled craftsman just to keep new weapons out of the hands of their enemies?”

“A fool,” Loki said with a grin, turning back around and striding towards the fortress. “Old magic is being used behind those walls. It's been passed down from father to son, mother to daughter and the Dark Elves keep it hidden so they can make ill use of it, while they tell us the Dwarves can no longer offer weapons to match those of a bygone age.”

“Wait,” Fandral said, looking very confused. “Are you saying Volstagg's right about something?”

“What I'm saying is,” Loki reflected quietly, “lies and trickery seem to be the weapons of choice here.”

“What's he talking about?” Volstagg whispered.

“Lies and trickery apparently,” Fandral whispered back.

“If Alflyse has put the Dwarves up to this, she's unlikely to admit it,” Sif said, unsteadily adding, “And we don't even know if Thor is dead or alive.”

“He's alive,” Loki said.

“How can you be sure?” Hogun asked.

A mad thought sprung his head that there could be no Loki without Thor, no Thor without Loki. A mad thought that said as long as Loki was here, breathing and alive, then somewhere, so was Thor. He told Hogun, “I'm smart.”

“Or maybe you have a heart like the rest of us, one that fills with hope,” Sif said, almost as if it was an accusation.

Loki allowed the small burble of a laugh in his chest, telling Sif, “Hope is for those without a plan. _I_ , have a plan.”

“It's not like Thor's plans is it? They usually involve us running for our lives and people trying to stab us with sharp instruments,” Fandral said. 

Loki stopped walking and turned to face Fandral with a big grin and a dagger in his hand. “Now that you mention it.”

# *

The Svartálfar were predictably accommodating when they found a king of Asgard waiting patiently on the threshold of their queen's fortress. Loki and Thor's friends were led inside through black rock corridors lit with their bright fiery torches, dark metal detailing present throughout the structure, curling on iron doors and crawling along the bottom of walls like black twisting snakes. Loki's eyes followed the intricate metal work all the way, admiring the impossible curls and twists.

Finally two towering doors slowly opened, smooth on silent hinges, revealing a yawning hall with smooth black floor and walls covered in the deepest crimson drapery. At the very far end was a raised platform on which was a throne with a metal frame that resembled a large claw, its palm a blood read seat in which sat Queen Alflyse, both her hands loosely placed on the arm rests. Alflyse looked every inch a goddess, Loki thought, her jet black hair long and straight, her skin a deep blue made even more vibrant against a white leather dress with gold ornaments. She had a slanted mouth that looked amused whether she was or not, and her brown eyes had a touch of wine in them. She was an enchanting creature, Loki thought, before pushing that thought right out of his mind. 

“I do wish I had been informed of your visit,” she said in a sweet honeyed voice. “I would have made arrangements to receive you.”

“Well. We were in the neighbourhood. Thought we'd drop by.” Alflyse frowned at him and Loki felt a matching set of frowns aimed at his back. “Now that I _am_ here, perhaps we can talk.”

Alflyse shot Sif and the others a none too trusting look before telling Loki, “I have already answered many questions about Thor's disappearance. I can't see what you could possibly learn that is any different.”

Loki turned his head to see Thor's friends glaring at the queen. Turning back to her, Loki said, “Thor is... _dear_ to me. To all of us. I am sure you can understand that even though you may have answered all the questions put to you, we are still hopeful that something has been overlooked. Surely, you would not begrudge us this hope.”

Loki felt a shift in the room, a different kind of quiet. He knew if he were to look at Thor's band of warriors, they would be staring at him, confused by such heartfelt sentiment. Not that what they thought mattered. No, what mattered was what Alflyse thought. 

“All I ask is that you answer some of my questions and let my friends take one more look at the site of the disappearance. That is all. I will then take my findings back to Asgard and we will deliberate on how to proceed with the Jotuns.”

Alflyse was quiet, watching him closely, her expression unreadable. She nodded after a moment. “Very well. I will answer your questions and my guards will accompany your friends. And that will be the end of the matter for us.”

“End of the matter? There can be no end to the matter until we find Thor,” Sif said, her throaty voice filled with impressive menace. 

Loki turned about and gave her a look, holding out Gungnir for her to see. Her mouth clamped tight as her eyes met his in reluctant deference. “You are to leave with the guards, Lady Sif. _Now_.”

Sif gave a stiff nod, bowing her head a notch as she left with the warriors flanking her and Alflyse's guards following. Loki watched them leave until the dark doors closed behind them, leaving him and Alflyse alone. He turned around, Gungnir shimmering out of view.

“Being king suits you,” Alflyse said, without any indication of being impressed. She crossed her legs and leaned back in her throne. “I heard you were missing from Asgard.”

“Did you? From whom did you hear this?” Loki asked.

Alflyse smiled. “As pleasurable as it always is to see you, Loki, you're wasting your time here. I already explained what happened.”

“Whether I believe you or not is irrelevant,” Loki said. “Father's advisers are waiting on Thor's friends to miraculously discover new information. I am simply the key that has been granted them to unlock a very stubborn door.”

Alflyse pulled a face. “You're saying you do not wish to know what happened to your--?”

“The Jotuns trying to sabotage Asgard is hardly new,” Loki interrupted, rolling his eyes at her rather juvenile expression. 

Alflyse stood from her throne, slowly walking down the few steps that brought her in front of Loki. “So... you have already decided a course of action?”

“I want to do what Odin should have done a long time ago,” Loki said. “Put the Jotuns down once and for all. It is why when I return to Asgard I will recommend to Father's advisers that Thor's disappearance reeks of Frost Giants.”

“Recommend?” Alflyse asked. “You are king. Command it.”

Loki held up his wrist, the golden manacle around it peeking out from under his sleeve. She frowned at it. “What is it?”

“Take a look,” Loki said.

Alflyse eyed him with caution before taking his wrist in her hands, feeling the manacle with her fingers, turning it this way and that to get a closer look. Frowning at him, she said, “Those are complicated runes. Written in the name of Frigga.”

Loki yanked his wrist out of her grasp, pulling his sleeve down to cover the golden bracelet completely. “You look surprised. A mother loving her own flesh and blood more than an enemy foundling should be easy enough to understand.”

“And yet here you are,” Alflyse said slowly. “Doing Asgard's bidding.”

Loki fixed her with a hardened stare, giving her a cool look. “Asgard needs to see that I am a good king. One who can and will go to war with his own kind for Asgard. One who awaits the return of the rightful heir to take his place.”

“Why?” Alflyse asked, smiling at Loki, already ahead of him.

Loki smiled back, tilting his head at her and whispering, “Because when he doesn't return, they will gladly bow before me and accept me as their king and remove this leash from around my neck.”

Alflyse arched a brow. “That sounds almost traitorous.”

Loki shrugged. “Not at all. I have only Asgard's interests at heart. It is just a pity that my reign could be short-lived.”

“Perhaps when Odin wakes he will let you remain king.”

“Oh yes. Until Thor returns,” Loki said. “And he _will_ return. Frigga will see to it. She will find him like she found me. Even the gatekeeper's gaze did not reach far enough to seek me out, but _she_ found me and brought me back to Asgard to keep Thor's throne warm for him.”

“Let me see if I have this right,” Alflyse said quietly, looking surprised. “You do not wish your betrothed to return.”

Loki opened his mouth to speak and then smiled, laughing quietly. “Of course, I wish him to return. However, if Frigga finds him too soon, my work will be left incomplete. Lady Sif has my mother's ear, and Frigga has influence over Odin's advisers. She wants to tear apart Svartalfheim to find her son, and I want to obliterate Jotunheim before Odin wakes.”

Alflyse stiffened slightly. She lifted her chin up, giving Loki a defiant look. “I have no reason--”

“I believe you,” Loki said. “It's why after the Jotuns are out of the way, my plan is to strengthen the alliance between Asgard and Svartalfheim. When I leave here today, it will be with the news that Thor's friends were taken by Jotuns right in front of my eyes as you and your people fought by my side.”

Alflyse frowned. “I don't understand.”

“Asgard has you in her eyes and if you have played part in any deception, you will be caught,” Loki said carefully. “Luckily, I believe you when you say you had nothing to do with Thor's disappearance and am offering a way for you to strengthen your claim, so Asgard can move against the terror that is Jotunheim.”

“So you can remain king.”

“So I can rid us both of the Frost Giants who continue to terrorise our realms,” Loki countered softly. He told her, “Alflyse... I want you to open a nexus portal to Jotunheim and send Thor's friends through it to the mouth of the Vimur River.”

“Why?” she asked, scowling at him.

He smiled. “Because I intend to obliterate the whole region. The Jotuns will be accused of destroying their own land to hide their crimes and Asgard will go to war on finding the remains of her finest warriors.”

“And what of Thor?” Alflyse asked. 

“I'm sure he's safe wherever he is,” Loki said. “I hope he will stay that way until I am finished with Jotunheim.”

“Interesting plan,” Alflyse said, looking somewhat stunned. 

Loki reached into his coat, pulling out a small leather pouch. “Locks of hair. I'm sure one of your magic smiths can conjure a portal and send Thor's friends through it without even laying a finger on them. They will of course call for Heimdall, but I have veiled this visit from his gaze for obvious reasons. Your smiths can use the hair to continue keeping Lady Sif and her annoyances out of sight once on Jotunheim.”

“You would send them to their deaths so easily?” Alflyse asked, looking genuinely stunned. 

“As easily as anyone who stands in the way of a better future for Asgard,” Loki said smoothly, holding out the pouch. “I am sure you would do the same for your realm.”

Alflyse took the pouch, looking troubled. She nodded and said, “If your machinations are discovered, I _will_ deny all knowledge.”

“Of course,” Loki said. “I just need one more thing from you.”

Alflyse arched a brow. “It is the Asgardian way. You are offered a hand and you take the whole arm. What can I do for you, ah, in exchange for a few amendments to the treaty between our peoples, good King Loki?”

Loki grinned and held up his wrist, looking at the golden tether. “I require your finest smith.”


	14. Chapter 14

Alflyse had her guards lead Loki away somewhere into the depths of the fortress where the air smelled like metal and smoke. His mind remained on her as he wondered if she would carry out the small task he had left her. She would be compelled to do so, wouldn't she? Thor's disappearance from her realm would force her hand into compliance. He had thought it through, foreseen all the possibilities and predicted the outcome. All he needed to do was wait.

“Through here, All-Father,” one of his guards gestured towards an archway beyond which Loki could see the flicker of flames on dark walls. All-Father, he mused. What a task it is to be the father of all things, Loki thought. 

Loki walked into the middle of a workshop with large wooden tables that were thick blocks on sturdy legs, carrying the weight of metals, of beakers filled with curious coloured liquids, jars with an assortment of colourful and dark substances. A fire burned hot and furious in the far wall, contained in an iron and brick fireplace. Past the fireplace, was a small table with a man sitting at it, bent over a ring held in an iron vice while he engraved the small circlet with a needle thin tool that sparkled with magical energy every time its tip touched the golden surface, the engraver peering close through his single eyepiece, a slim brown and short cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth, it's tip glowing red for a moment as he worked.

“Kyr,” Loki's guard alerted the smith to their presence. 

Kyr didn't look up immediately. Loki watched him apply a final touch to the ring he was working on before putting down his tool, putting aside his eyepiece and stubbing out the cigar. He got to his feet and acknowledged Loki's presence with a quick short bow, looking to the guard to take a piece of parchment, which he silently read, Loki observing him the whole time.

Kyr was slightly shorter than Loki, broad in the shoulders, his torso tapering down to a narrow waist. His skin was pale and his short dark hair seemed coppery under the dim light, his square jaw covered in slight stubble. The cloudy blue of his eyes made them seem cool and distance, a small pale scar just above his lip giving his mouth the look of an unintentional sneer. The sleeves of his brown shirt were rolled up to the elbows and Loki could see he was all sinew and muscle, his dark trousers covering slim legs. He seemed to Loki as if he had been wrought like the pieces of iron that were lying around the workshop.

Finished reading, Kyr folded the parchment and handed it to the guard, a leather-bound figure whose blue face remained unreadable the whole time. He took the parchment, nodded to Kyr and Loki, swiftly leaving.

“May I?” Kyr asked in the guttural tone of the Dwarves, his voice a jagged and deep sound, nodding to Loki's wrist, where the tether was poking out from under his sleeve. 

Loki nodded and Kyr walked across the small room, taking Loki's hand in one of his own, the long fingers of his other hand examining the metal that encircled Loki's wrist. Loki watched as Kyr held the tether tight in both hands, forehead dented in concentration, mouth clamped tight. Kyr's eyes, aimed at the tether, to glowed glassy and bright for a moment. Loki felt a hot and sharp jolt run through him, making him jerk back from Kyr. 

“Agh,” Loki grunted, pulling his hand away, still feeling the snap of the strike across his skin. “ _What_ was that?”

Kyr's jaw was clenched, his mouth pursed. He looked away for a moment and then back at Loki, a little more composed. “Forgive me, sire, I was trying to find the join in the tether.”

“And?” Loki asked, pressing down on the urge to snap.

“There isn't one,” Kyr said. “I tried to pry the tether open anyway. It didn't like that very much.”

“I gathered that,” Loki said with a curl of his lip. “Is there anything you can do of _use_?”

Loki was almost surprised by the flinty look he received from Kyr, both provocative and cautious at the same time. He nodded towards one of his work tables. “I will need a closer look. Please, take a seat.”

Loki sat down on a wooden stool by the table to which Kyr had gestured, watching Kyr move across the room, the smooth glide of a proud man. There was a reason why Alflyse had sent Loki to this smith and not another, Loki thought. It seemed to matter to him not all that he was in the same room as the King of Asgard. 

“Is there a chance you can't remove the tether?” Loki asked him.

Kyr was searching through a draw on the other side of the table. He shook his head and said, “Not the slightest.”

Loki laughed at Kyr's confidence. Kyr stopped rifling through his draw to look at Loki. “The runes used in the binding are old, complex, but known to knowledgeable practitioners.”

“And you happen to know them,” Loki said, unconvinced.

“I know them enough to recognise that the right cypher will break the binding,” Kyr said, back to his rummaging around.

“I am in your hands,” Loki said, watching Kyr's stiff shoulders. “Do what you will.”

Kyr brought over a wooden box in one hand and a square magnifying glass in the other. He set up the magnifying glass on a frame, so it lay flat on top, gesturing with his hand for Loki to place his wrist under the glass. Loki pulled his sleeve up and slipped his arm into place, while Kyr opened his box to reveal an assortment of vials holding liquids of different colours, along with picks and needles of varying length and thickness. 

Loki eyed the tools as Kyr picked up a bottle of green liquid, uncorking the bottle and tapping out a few viscous drops onto the glass. Putting the bottle away, he proceeded to smear the green with the tips of two fingers until it covered the whole surface of the glass. He pulled his hand away and clicked his fingers, sparking a flame that erupted across the glass, bright and green until it turned orange and then white, finally disappearing completely to leave a gentle pink glow emanating from the glass, a line of golden runes moving inside it like a wave. 

Kyr walked away to fetch his eyepiece, returning to sit next to Loki, watching the projection with complete attention. Fixing the eyepiece to his eye, he peered closer, telling Loki, “That's the true binding on your tether, in the form the spell cast, not the engraving you see. It's very impressive. Queen Frigga is remarkably talented.”

“Yes,” Loki murmured, looking at Kyr. “Apparently she's not the only one.”

Kyr readjusted his eyepiece, picking up a long metal pick. Eyes on the runes hanging in the air, he reached for Loki's wrist, taking it in one hand, while with his other, the pick began to trace the engravings on the surface. Loki watched as the runes in front of him flared in the pink mist with each prod. It seemed to take forever as Kyr traced the same lines again and again, using different picks, until finally, right before Loki's eyes, a letter unfurled and disappeared and his tether made a resounding click. Kyr leaned back with a full grin, letting his eyepiece drop into the palm of his hand. The tether was still circling Loki's wrist, but a thin line had appeared across it, without causing Loki any pain.

Loki smiled at the small fracture and said, “Well, aren't you clever?”

Kyr gave Loki a bland look. “Do you know the fire trick, sire? Asgardian children are often taught it at the beginning of their education, those who are still taught magic that is.”

“I know it well. My mother taught me it,” Loki said, holding up his free hand and snapping his fingers, bringing a small flame to life in the palm of his hand.

Kyr nodded, looking at the flame, before snapping his fingers and making it disappear from Loki's hand to his own palm. When Kyr turned his hand, the flame just seemed to roll with the movement on to the back of his hand, before Kyr blew in its direction and put it out.

“Those who can practice magic are _clever_ ,” Kyr said, looking at his hand which bore no marks of burning. He looked at Loki and said, “The Dwarves of Svartalfheim are more than that. The first thing a child here learns is not how to make magic, but how to take control of it. How to weave it. Pull it into shape. See how every fibre of it works, so that we can craft things of beauty from it. So that we can find even the smallest flaws in the best of magic.”

Loki felt his mouth stretch to a smile as he listened to Kyr. “Every magical tapestry that you weave or pick apart is a labour of love.”

“I dislike trickery,” Kyr said, nodding. “And I dislike those who use magic for that purpose. They are the kind of people who would use a precious metal for a toothpick.”

“Not you. You take pride in your work. Why else would you be the queen's smith? Tell me something, Kyr, was it you? Did you subdue the King of Asgard?”

Kyr didn't seem troubled by the question at all. He gave Loki a bland smile and said, “I'm sure I don't know what you're speaking about, sire.”

Loki grinned, tilting his head at Kyr. “Let us suppose that a talented smith as yourself was charged with stealing a god, how would you go about it? Hypothetically, you understand.”

Kyr arched a brow at Loki, looking amused. He stood up and turned to go, telling Loki, “I think I am not clever enough to answer your questions.”

Loki reached out and grabbed Kyr's hand, feeling Kyr's whole body become rigid with surprise. The smith turned and frowned at Loki. “Oh but you are the brightest spark in this dismal excuse of a realm.”

Kyr was motionless, his fingers cool in Loki's grasp. “Are you trying to use this spark to light a fire?”

Loki smiled, thrilled at the reply. “A torch, to light my way. Tell me, this tether you are to so effortlessly remove, can it be of use to me?”

“Of use,” Kyr said. He hadn't pulled away, and his lip had curled up in an interested smile. “On whom?”

“An Asgardian,” Loki said. “Could I use this to tie him to a certain place?”

“Who?” Kyr asked. Loki gave him a silent and stubborn look. Kyr continued waiting for an answer. “I can do nothing if I have no name.”

“Thor,” Loki said quietly, for Kyr's ears only.

“Thor?” Kyr whispered, his expression of interest unchanged. There was no confusion on his brow, not a line of worry over Loki asking to shackle a missing god.

“The queen says it is only a matter of time before he returns... regardless of where he might be now,” Loki answered. “Frigga is close to finding him.”

“Then you have something to celebrate, do you not?” Kyr asked. Loki stared at Kyr for a moment, looking straight into his ice cool eyes. Then he looked away at Gungnir, finally settling his gaze on dark rock floor. Kyr hummed, asking, “Have you heard the old saying? It is not the king that wields the weapon, but the weapons that wields the king?”

“I have.” Loki looked at Kyr, smiling. “I think it means I am absolved of all treacherous thoughts.”

Kyr had still made no attempt to pull away from Loki's grasp. “Gungnir must have you firm in her grip.”

Loki angled his head up, standing so he and Kyr were face to face, quietly asking him, “Tell me how you tame a god.”

Kyr's eyes darted to the doorway and back to Loki, fingers still in Loki's firm grasp. “Not with a tether. No chains, no shackles.”

“Then what?” Loki urged gently, blinking at Kyr.

Kyr's eyes darted away and back, his thoughts sparkling in his eyes. “The taint of berserker that runs through the bloodline of Bor. Think of an element that is inert on its own, but add something as harmless and water, or air, and it becomes violent, destructive.”

“A drop of dark magic into berserker blood,” Loki said, the air in his lungs thinning. He mustered up a grin, though his face felt burdened by the move. “Ingenious.”

Loki let go of Kyr and the smith took a step back. He nodded to the tether and said. “To re-fashion the tether as you want, I would require something of his body, and something of the place you wish to tie him to. I posses neither, therefore I can do no more than remove it.”

Loki reached inside his coat and pulled out a small leather pouch, placing it on the table. “A lock of hair and a lump of Jotun rock. Will that suffice?”

Kyr looked genuinely surprised. He had not counted on Loki being so well prepared to betray Thor. Good, Loki thought. “For how long?”

“As long as Jotunheim stands,” Loki said. “Not long.”

“You're a Jotun,” Kyr said. “You would still see that realm destroyed?”

“It stopped being my realm when the Jotuns made me a part of their bargain with Asgard,” Loki said. “One day you may similarly tire of the Dark Elves who rule your realm, and grow fat off the magic of the Dwarves.”

Kyr snorted, shaking his head. “What do you care? The Asgardians, the Jotuns, both look to the Dark Elves for Dwarvish weapons. It suits you well that we are the workers and not the rulers.”

“You're right. It does suit Asgard and Jotunheim well,” Loki said. “But me? I am not Asgardian enough for Asgard, nor Jotun enough for Jotunheim. Your situation neither displeases me, nor delights me.”

Kyr laughed, showing a mouthful of bright even teeth. “You have a clever tongue, sire, I will give you that.”

Loki pouted slightly and held up his wrist to show Kyr the tether. “But you could give me so much more.”

Kyr gave the tether an apprehensive look, eyes darting to the doorway and back again. “I was asked to remove it and no more...”

“When Thor is discovered,” Loki said seriously, “it is best that I find him first. He won't fight me. He trusts me. If he is discovered anywhere within these walls, he and Asgard will look to punish someone and your queen will point to that bright spark who helped her take Thor.”

“What makes you think--”

“Your confidence and your pride. You are so sure of your skill. Of course you would keep him close, like a trophy. It's what I would do. Keep my conquests chained close where I can see them.” 

Kyr was looking at the fire, looking lost in thought. Loki tilted his head to get a look under that hooded haze of Kyr's, waiting for a response. 

“I'm going to Jotunheim to speak with Laufey. To make him aware of an impending Asgardian incursion. Incidentally, the site of that incursion is where Thor's friends are headed as we speak. Where they will sadly perish. If Thor were to be there too, I would make sure he stays there. And while Frigga and Odin mourn for him, I would build a new Asgard, with the help of my allies.”

Loki looked at the flickering flames in the fireplace. He snapped his fingers and the fire died, making the room darker. A flicker of flame appeared in the palm of Loki's hand. He watched it for a moment before blowing it out, returning the fire to its natural state and the room its light. 

“My... talented allies,” he told Kyr. “You and I are not so different, Kyr. We would do exceptional things, were we not so firmly kept in our place. What do you say?”

“I say you could sell Asgard to Odin with a tongue as silver as yours, sire,” Kyr said. 

“Help me,” Loki said quietly, softly adding, “Please.”

“What you ask for could put my life in jeopardy,” Kyr said.

Loki grinned. “I know. Isn't it exciting?”

Kyr looked away, grinning and shaking his head. When he looked back, his expression seemed softer. Loki tamed his own expression, wondering if he had found the right cypher to unlock this smith. 

“Tell me what you want,” Loki asked, part seductive, part coaxing. 

Kyr seemed to sink into thought. His eyes darted to the doorway again. Loki followed his gaze, turning his head. When he turned back Kyr had moved in close, his cheek brushing Loki's. Loki stilled, raising his eyebrows. _Oh_ , he thought, before mentally shrugging and angling a little closer.

“Someone has been at the queen's ear,” Kyr whispered. He pulled back slightly, so he and Loki were eye-to-eye, close enough for a kiss, but sharing no more than a secret. “Someone who seeks to bring back long banished Dark Elves, has a grudge against the house of Bor, and would make slaves of my kind.”

“Someone who might want to make a king of Asgard vanish?” Loki asked. Kyr said nothing, but something about his expression said Loki had finally stumbled upon the truth. “What are you asking me for?”

“If the banished Dark Elves return, you will defend the Dwarves, because I know Alflyse will not,” Kyr said.

“That would breach a number of treaties,” Loki said. “And be about as popular as giving the Jotuns the keys to Asgard.”

Kyr gazed into Loki's eyes, whispering. “What are treaties to the All-Father?”

Loki nodded thoughtfully, flashing Kyr a pleased smile. “Fair point.”

“Swear it,” Kyr said. “Loki, King of Asgard, defender of the Dwarves. You will fight for us and give us refuge should we need it, if I do this for you.”

Loki's smile felt a little tight as he said, “I do. I shall.”

“Then seal it,” Kyr said. Loki frowned, eyes darting away as he pondered Kyr's request, until their proximity made sense. Loki looked back at Kyr, eyes lowering to Kyr's mouth and back at his eyes again. Kyr tilted his head and blinked at Loki. “Well?”

Loki absently licked his bottom lip which suddenly felt dry, moistening it as he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Kyr's mouth. As he began to pull back, he felt Kyr's hand cup the back of his head, his mouth pushing forward for a more complete kiss as he angled his head. Kyr's teeth and tongue were accompanied by a prickle of heat across Loki's mouth, a strange tingling that made his lips feel numb for a moment, and then it was soft and moist lips again, gently pulling away. 

Loki blinked at Kyr, strangely off-balance. It took a moment for him to find his smile again, which he flashed at Kyr, whilst lifting up his tethered wrist. “Shall we?”

Kyr nodded, walking away to retrieve another pick as Loki sat back down. Kyr returned and sat down, guiding Loki's wrist back under the glass, getting back to work with renewed focus, silent and closed off. Not that Loki felt compelled to make conversation. The vow he had just made was still tingling across his mouth, distracting him, making his insides feel heavy. It was while he was pondering the banished Dark Elves that his tether clicked and just dropped from his wrist with a heavy clunk, revealing an ornate twisted clasp. Kyr held it up with a rather smug smile.

Loki looked at the tether, feeling the thrum of freedom returning to him, the reach of realms tingling at the tips of his fingers. “Impressive.”

Kyr nodded and said, “I will have it re-fashioned for you in a moment.”

He took the tether along with the small pouch containing Jotun rock deposit and a lock of Thor's hair, leaving the room to go into a smaller work chamber hidden behind a thick curtain. Loki sat watching the curtain, gaze intensely fixed on it as he thought about Kyr's kiss, its impression lasting a little too long for comfort. 

“Brokk? Brokk, a word, cousin!” 

Loki slowly turned his head towards the doorway to see who had broken the lengthy silence of the room, finding a short man with a head of long mousy hair and a stubbly face. He saw Loki and stopped in his tracks, bowing his head.

“Apologies, sire. I was looking for my cousin. I am Eitry.”

“What was the name you were calling just now?” Loki asked. 

“Brokk, sire. My--”

“Cousin, yes, so you said.” Eitry looked uncomfortable where he stood, pinned in place by Loki's stare. More to himself than anyone else, Loki muttered, “Brokk.”

A loud crackle snapped both his and Eitry's attention to the goings on behind the curtain. Eitry pointed in its direction and said, “Sire, may I? I will be a moment.”

Loki gave him a silent nod, watching Eitry return a thankful bow of the head and scurry off, disappearing behind the curtain. Loki stood up, taking a step towards the quiet voices beyond the curtain. Quiet laughter and talk of supper reached his ears, but no more about this Brokk. Not that it mattered. Loki already knew the trick the fates were playing on him. His heart was hammering out the cypher of this riddle, his fingers absently touching his mouth. 

“I will see you at supper then,” Kyr was saying, pulling back the curtain and walking his cousin out.

Eitry smiled at Kyr and turned to leave, politely bowing his head to Loki as he left. “Sire.”

Loki watched him leave before twisting around to look at Kyr. “I trust all is well. _Brokk_.”

“It is.” Kyr nodded. “Though, I prefer Kyr, sire, if it doesn't pain you.”

“Not at all,” Loki said, something like rage buzzing under his skin. “Though, I am intrigued as to how you have gone from Brokk to Kyr.”

“Brokkyr,” was the quiet reply. “The name of my grandfather. I cared neither for the man, nor his name.”

Loki grinned, a bitter taste sitting in his mouth. “I think I might prefer Kyr too.”

Kyr frowned at Loki, looking somewhat surprised. He smiled slightly, holding out the tether. “It is done.”

Loki stepped forward, reaching for the tether in Kyr's hand. As his fingers touched the tether, Kyr's hand closed over his, turning it and tipping the tether into his palm, holding it there as he quietly said, “I risk much today. I hope you will not forget your promise to me.”

Loki looked at his hand caught in Kyr's grasp, swallowing the lump in his drying throat. “I'm sure you would have my head if I dared forget,” Loki said quietly, before flashing a bright grin at Kyr.

Kyr looked troubled, a slight frown disturbing his expression. “I'd rather you remembered, sire.”

Loki smiled tiredly. “Do you?”

“I think I do.” Kyr nodded, smiling and letting go of Loki's hand. “Perhaps there is something to be said for the magic of a silver tongue.”

Loki looked at the tether in his hands, running his thumb over the altered clasp. “Is there? How do you think it might fare against the fates? Do you think my words could sway them from their weaving?”

Kyr was quietly laughing when Loki looked up. He gave Loki a nod and said. “If anyone can, I think perhaps it is King Loki of Asgard.”

Loki smiled at Kyr, holding up the tether. “You have my gratitude.”

Kyr shook his head. “I have my promise.”

Loki safely tucked the tether away in his coat. “You could have asked me for anything. I would have given it to you.”

Kyr looked around the dark room, eyes roaming over the tools of his trade. “I asked you for what I wanted. The future of those I love the most.”

“Sentiment,” Loki said. “A fool's indulgence.”

“I take it you have no time for sentiment?” Kyr asked, amusement playing on his lips. Loki thought of Midgard, the Avengers, of Thor locked away somewhere, his mother alone, his father in a deep sleep. He thought of Laufey's haggard dark face, red eyes without fire. “Sire?”

Loki smiled at Kyr. “No. Not I. I have no time to play the fool.”

Kyr looked down, nodding, his smile smoothing away the hard angles of his face. Looking at Loki, he asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you, sire?”

“A portal to Jotunheim,” Loki said. Kyr nodded, holding up a finger and turning to run back to his inner work chamber. He returned holding up the small rock. Loki looked at it and said, “I do hope I'll find what I'm looking for there.”

Kyr winked and threw the rock in Loki's direction. Loki caught it, scowled at the rock and opened his mouth to ask Kyr exactly what he was supposed to do with it when the room exploded in bright white light, throwing Loki through the air with enough force to knock the air out of his lungs. Loki landed on his back hard, the snow not cushioning his fall much. Blinking slowly, Loki stared up at the snow drifting down from the black Jotun sky, feeling quite the fool.


	15. Chapter 15

Loki's eyes fluttered open. Or shut. Or open? Either way, he frowned through half-closed eyes at the white sky of a blanket being held up over him, its burden being born by Thor who was looking down at Loki and grinning in amusement. 

“What did you say?” Loki murmured sleepily.

“Don't worry,” Thor said, “I will not let them take you. _Brother_.”

Loki tried to force his eyes open. “Don't you wish we could go back there? To when we were brothers?”

Thor shook his head slowly, smiling as he leaned down to press a light kiss against Loki's mouth, whispering, “We'll always be brothers.”

Loki tilted his chin up, closing his eyes and falling into the kiss, taking slow sips of melting cold from Thor's lips. Loki frowned, licking his bottom lip and tasting a freshly fallen snowflake. His eyes opened a crack to look down at his hand which was still holding the nexus opening piece of Jotun rock. 

“Dwarves,” he muttered, throwing the rock aside as he stood up and looked around. 

It was snowing hard. The icy fields beyond the cliff top where Loki stood looked bright white under a black sky. The stars were shining like tiny torches and the snow seemed to be falling right out of them. It wasn't an unpleasant sight, Loki thought. The rock ruins, remains of past wars, even they possessed a quiet dignity, looking like sorrow-filled blue-tinted sculptures. Jotunheim had always been such an ugly place in his mind. Cold and unforgiving, monstrous like its inhabitants. But it wasn't that cold at all, at least not for him. And what was so unforgiving about this mournful landscape? What was so monstrous? Nothing, Loki thought, nothing at all. In fact, Jotunheim was quite... tolerable. 

Loki grimaced, turning his back on the icy vista, to find he was being watched from afar. There in the distance, their legs deep in the snow, was a group of Jotuns looking like storm-damaged trees that had lost all their leaves, all of them turned towards him, watching with utter stillness. Loki wasn't certain how he could be sure, but the Jotun he needed wasn't amongst them. The Jotuns in this group stood tall, defensive, their impressive shoulders squared for a fight. Laufey, Loki had noticed, possessed an ever so subtle slouch to his shoulders. He was not amongst these Jotuns. 

“This,” Loki muttered as he brought Gungnir into view, “could mean trouble.”

They were moving now, slowly but surely towards him. Loki felt the impulse to step back but caught himself, rigidly staying his ground, holding Gungnir out, watching them approach with the gaze of a king. Behind him the sky was crackling, still reeling from the impact of a nexus portal.

“Asgardian,” came a growl from the leader of the sour band when they finally arrived. 

It occurred to Loki as he stared up at the Jotun addressing him that each Jotun was as unique as the snowflakes falling over him. It was quite the Asgardian fallacy that no Jotun could be told apart. The one glaring at Loki had markings that set him apart, had varying facial ridges, squatted horns unlike most of his friends. His body was impressive, defined and lean. His features were sharp, almost elegant. Loki had no problem believing that this young Jotun, for he was certainly young, was quite the catch in these parts. Momentarily stunned that this was truly the first time he had really looked at a Jotun, Loki offered no more than a nod, whilst trying to stamp out a spark of shame and regret somewhere inside him.

“What is the meaning of using Svartálfar portals on Jotunheim?” Loki's inquisitor asked him. 

“Portals,” Loki echoed, glad to know his wasn't the first.

“Why have you brought the Asgardians here?” Loki was asked.

“Surely Laufey has already explained,” Loki said. “Question me, and you question your own king.”

The leader surged forward, held back by another who gruffly said, “Byleist. We have our orders.”

“Byleist,” Loki said quietly. “Son of Laufey.”

“Son and heir of Laufey,” Byleist said with a nod, berry-red eyes glowing hot at Loki. “Do not think it will be as easy to command me as it is my father, or that I will let you tread Jotunheim as if it belongs to you.”

Loki laughed, shaking his head, refusing that pang of sudden sorrow inside his chest. Kings and their thrones, it was all getting so dull. Still, Byleist didn't have to know that. “I'm quite sure that were I to exert my right, Jotunheim and everything on it, could very well belong to me. Imagine that for a moment. Me, King of both Jotunheim _and_ Asgard. One king, two realms, and millions of miserable subjects. Finally, you would all have a cause to unite you.”

“You dare mock--”

“Byleist!” The roar was Laufey, whose approach no one had noticed during all the posturing, not even Loki, who was too busy feeding off the heat of being spurned by Byleist. “Make sure the Asgardians have been secured.”

Byleist gave Laufey a mutinous look before turning on his heel and stalking away with his band of followers. That left Laufey to give Loki quite the disapproving look. Loki shrugged, “Just making polite conversation.”

“Byleist is young, unsure of his place, his purpose,” Laufey said. “He fears he cannot match a king of Asgard.”

Loki looked at Gungnir and felt the weight of the tether in his coat. Shaking his head, he said, “There's not an awful lot to match up to. I'm sure he'll make a fine a king as any.”

Laufey had no response, making Loki look up to find a quizzical expression on the Jotun's face. Finally, Laufey said, “No scathing words for your Jotun brother?”

I'm tired, Loki thought, tired of Asgard, of Jotunheim, of the Dark Elves, the Dwarves, destiny, the fates. Of his very own mirror image. Quietly, he replied, “No. I think not.”

Again, Laufey seemed at a loss for words. He just stood there looking old, and tired too. Laufey looked in the direction Byleist and the others had gone. “Four Asgardians arrived not so long ago.”

Loki nodded. “Thor's friends. Watch them closely and make sure no harm comes to them. They will be the ones who testify that you had no hand in the disappearance of Thor.”

“And Thor?”

Loki turned around, looking at the silent landscape. “When he arrives, keep him with the others.”

“If he doesn't?” Laufey said. 

Loki shook his head, looking up at the sky. “He'll be here. He'll be here or I have just made a very expensive pact with the Dwarves.”

“A pact?” Laufey said. “What manner of pact?”

“It doesn't concern you,” Loki said sullenly, back still turned on Laufey. 

“A pact with Dwarves could cost you your head if it goes unfulfilled,” Laufey said, almost as if he was admonishing Loki. Loki rolled his eyes, continuing his watch of the skies. Laufey quietly growled, “Asgardian arrogance.”

Loki turned around, laughing. “Of course, anything foolish and self-destructive must have its origins on Asgard. Couldn't possibly be Jotun arrogance, could it?”

“No throne is worth making a pact with the Dwarves,” Laufey said. You will lose twice what you gain.”

Loki opened his mouth to ask how Laufey could possibly know, but Laufey appeared absolutely alone, standing with his shoulders hunched, the background nothing but rising land topped with snowfall. His realm, though still beautiful, seemed like a graveyard, like something that had once bloomed and now slept. What pact did you make, Loki wondered, what did you lose?

A sound like a whip crack broke the silence between Loki and Laufey, the sky flashing a bright white for a second. Loki turned around to look at the spot where he had woken up. A second later there was a blinding light and the sound of rushing wind. When silence and calm returned, Loki saw a black iron casket had been left behind. He took two steps forward before he faltered and couldn't move. He knew Laufey was standing close to him, his eyes on Loki instead of the casket.

“Make sure your people have secured Thor's friends,” Loki said. “I'll check the casket.”

“There is no need for-”

“Please,” Loki said, quick and sharp, avoiding Laufey's gaze. “You have nothing to worry about and you have my word he will pose no danger to you.”

“And you?” Laufey asked.

Loki shook his head, laughing quietly. “Neither will I.”

“My question,” Laufey said, “is whether he will pose a danger to you, King Loki.”

Loki grinned in response, which earned him a low murmur of disapproval. He pointed at Laufey with Gungnir. “I need but a few moments, and then you can return to take Thor to his dear friends.”

Laufey gave Loki a displeased look, but moved all the same, muttering him as he left, “You are your mother's son.”

“Am I?” Loki found himself asking Laufey's turned back. He grimaced, cursing himself for not taming his mouth. Laufey seemed to have gone rigid with surprise, only turning his head back slightly. Quietly, Loki asked, “Am I my mother's son?”

“Yes. Perhaps it is not Asgardian arrogance you possess after all,” Laufey said, voice impossible soft for a Jotun king. “I will see to the Asgardians.”

Loki watched Laufey walk away, slowly disappearing into the distance. Loki took a shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Once he opened them again, he turned around and walked towards the casket. It was black and smooth, completely still, no indication that whatever was inside still lived. Loki reached for the recently broken latch, to lift the lid, but the moment his fingers touched the metal he was assaulted by a barrage of images familiar to him from the mirror vision his mother had shown him. 

Again, he saw himself, but he saw glimpses of others too; he saw Rogers, Stark, Romanoff, Barton and Fury. He saw a terrifying image of Coulson he couldn't understand and didn't want to believe. He saw things that made him want to refuse what he was seeing. It took all the willpower he had to pull away from the casket. Loki fell back, landing on the snow covered ground, Gungnir dropping next to him. He shook his head, staring at the casket, understanding what Kyr had meant when he spoke of imprisonment without the aid of chains and manacles. Loki didn't want to know what Thor was seeing inside that casket, he didn't want to know what such a large drop of dark magic did in the blood of Bor, what madness it awakened. 

He slowly stood up, watching the casket, estimating its dimensions before backing away and aiming Gungnir at the lid. It only took one shot to flip the lid clean off, sending it spinning away, leaving the casket open and uncovered. Loki watched in silence for a while. Nothing happened. Loki took slow and careful steps towards the casket, craning his neck to get a look inside, glimpsing only what seemed to be a black shroud. He lowered Gungnir and stepped closer still, until he was standing at the foot of the open casket, looking at the shroud which hid a body beneath it. Loki reached out towards the shroud, but before he could touch it, it flew up all of a sudden, flying towards him. For a moment he was caught wrestling with the shroud, trying to free himself of it, Gungnir falling from his hand. When he was finally rid of the shroud and turning back, it was to see Thor directly in front of him, his hand coming up to wrap itself around Loki's throat, pushing him up onto his toes.

Loki looked down at Thor with wide-eyes, Gungnir lying inert by his feet. Thor seemed almost like the spectre that had been haunting Loki's mirrors; hollowed-eyed and pale, lips dry, hair hanging greasy and limp. His hand, even with a strong grip, seemed to shake. They both stared at each other in silence for the longest time. 

“You killed me,” Thor rasped, when he finally spoke. Then, as if more to himself than Loki, he repeated, “You _killed_ me.”

Loki grasped Thor's wrist with both hands, trying to get Thor to loosen his grip. Loki managed to gasp out, “But you're here. You're alive.”

“No.” Thor shook Loki hard, his voice ragged as he repeated once again, “You _killed_ me. I died. I remember.”

“Then you remember wrong,” Loki said, gritting his teeth. 

Thor shook his head. “I can still feel it. How can I still feel it if I am wrong?”

“This is madness, Thor,” Loki snapped, struggling against Thor's grip.

“Is it?” Thor spat. He moved in close enough for Loki to smell sweat and stale breath, murmuring, “ _Is_ it madness?”

The words echoed through Loki's mind, stealing his power of speech and bringing back the memory of those shards of realities his mother should not have seen, nor shown him. “ _No_. I couldn't. Not even if I wanted to.”

A thick tear rolled down Thor's cheek as he frowned. “I was trapped in mortal form. It was my death at your hands, at the hands of the destroyer you commanded, that made me worthy of Mjölnir again. We fought each other like enemies, Loki. And then... then I lost you to an abyss. No matter how much I wanted to save you, you just let go. You hated me so much, you chose to perish.”

There, a flare of memory bright in the corner of Loki's eye. He could see being Thor flung by an Asgardian destroyer. See him return, straight to his mother's arms. See him reaching out as Loki felt himself falling away. _No, Loki_ , he could hear his father's voice. A pain jabbed him in his eye, like a piece of broken mirror embedded in his skull, and Loki squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, Thor seemed to be searching Loki's face for answers, forehead wrinkled with desperation. _It wasn't because of you_ , Loki wanted to say, _you are the only one who ever mattered_. But he was confusing himself with lives he hadn't lived, and lives Thor had only dreamed of living. These were not their scars to wear.

Loki let his features relax, shaking his head slightly. “The casket's trick was to keep you trapped, and to torture you without anyone ever laying a hand on you.”

Thor's fingers relaxed somewhat, confusion appearing across his brow. “What?”

“The Svartálfar. They're no match for you and Mjölnir. They had to devise a way for you to be your own warden.” Loki said, reaching out to place his hand against Thor's chest, curling his fingers there. “You had to believe the things you saw were real, or they wouldn't have been able to hold you. What you saw, it was a dream, Thor.”

Thor closed his eyes, shaking his head. “It felt like no dream.”

“Dreams seldom do,” Loki reasoned. 

Thor was still shaking his head, his brow furrowed in concentration, his hand releasing Loki, slipping to the neck of his tunic, gripping the fabric tight. “I saw the Jotuns come to Asgard. You and I, we rode side by side to Jotunheim seeking retaliation. Father banished me to Midgard, where you told me he had died during my exile, that our mother _forbid_ my return. You died, Loki. You died and I grieved for you.”

Loki covered Thor's hand. “Thor. I, like you, am very much alive. Look at us.”

Thor's hand turned slightly to catch Loki's fingers, holding on for a moment before he moved back. Loki watched Thor as he turned and stared silently at the Jotun landscape. The casket had done more than conjure dreams. It had conjured a reality. Dark magic, Loki thought, never amounted to anything good. 

“Do you remember visiting the Svartálfar? You were captured,” Loki told Thor. “The queen's smith devised a method of keeping you subdued, so you would not even think of breaking free from your imprisonment. All the while the Jotuns have been blamed for your disappearance and Asgard is on the brink of making war.”

Thor turned his head to stare at Loki, frowning at him, surprise evident in his eyes, which were moving to look at Gungnir. Loki wondered what Thor was surprised about. That Loki was king? That he had found Thor and uncovered the deception? That he had returned from his self-imposed exile? Whatever it was, Thor didn't look as though he was going to explain it. 

Sharper than he intended, Loki said, “Don't look so surprised. I was hardly going to let you rot on some backwater realm, was I? Not to mention, Mother was worried.”

Thor smiled ever so slightly. “Just Mother?”

“Heimdall might have said something too,” Loki replied blandly. Thor's smiled spread, brightening his eyes. Before Thor could say anything else, Loki quickly added, “So, push this dream from your mind. I'm quite sure I won't be killing you just yet.”

“It was more than a dream. I feel I have lived another life. Lived amongst mortals and seen myself from their eyes. I did not like what I saw, Loki. When I think of how much I wanted the Jotuns dead...” Thor swallowed, shaking his head, his fists clenched tight by his sides. 

Loki could do no more than watch him in stunned silence for a while. Frowning, he quietly asked, “Wanted? Not anymore?”

“No,” Thor said firmly. “Not anymore.”

Loki laughed out in surprise, making Thor look up at him. “A _dream_ made you change your mind. All those years I tried to convince you to tame your temper, and a _dream_ was all it took to make you see sense?”

Thor's intense gaze pinned Loki to the spot. It took a moment for Loki to realise that Thor looked not angry, but afraid. Loki quickly sobered. There was not much in this universe Thor feared. Even so, Loki could not find it in himself to offer apology for such a scathing remark. He could not help but feel ever so burned.

“You were right,” Thor said, sadness clouding his eyes, an unhappy pull on his mouth. Loki shook his head, unwilling to worsen Thor's mood, but Thor cut him off and said, “Pride is no reason for war, for breaking peace. Besides, I do not think Odin's love would increase for either of us if we gifted him a race of dead Jotuns.”

Loki stared. “That must have been quite the dream.”

Thor looked away, shaking his head. “It was no dream. It was a nightmare. One I do not care to repeat.”

“Father will be pleased with your new found love of the Jotuns,” Loki said, wishing he hadn't said it. He might has well have carved his jealousy onto his own forehead for all to see. Grinning, his face tight and rigid, he added, “Not so much about breaking the pact of our union.”

Thor frowned at Loki. “The pact will remain, Loki. It must”

Loki laughed. “Your dream revelations have allowed you to see past your hatred of the Jotuns. I can't imagine that they haven't coloured your love for me.”

Thor turned towards Loki, looking so earnest it made Loki ache in his chest. Thor reached out, cupping the back of Loki's neck. “Even in my dream, filled with all its horrors, I did not stop loving you. Not even for one moment, Loki. I couldn't. Not even if I wanted to.”

Loki nodded, all laughter, all grins and smiles vanished. He surged forward, grabbing at Thor's armour and pulling him close for a kiss. Thor's body was rigid for a moment, but his limbs seemed to loosen and his arms were enclosing Loki, drawing him in tight as he crushed his mouth to Loki's, the kiss hungry and feverish, leaving them both breathless when they separated. 

“I missed you,” Thor said, his eyes bright and fixed on Loki's gaze. Loki nodded, his hands stroking down Thor's arms, his forearms, his fingers gentle and light. “Was the thought of being my consort so abhorrent that you had to leave?”

Loki shook his head. “You were my only reason to stay, Thor.”

“And now?” Thor asked, holding his palms up where Loki was holding his hands. “Have you returned to stay?”

“No,” Loki said, his answered followed by a loud click, which made Thor's gaze dart down to the tether secured around his wrist. “I'm afraid I won't be staying.”

Loki moved back to a safe distance as Thor pulled at the tether with no luck. He held up his wrist and demanded, “What's the meaning of this, Loki?”

“It's quite simple,” Loki said. “I need for you to remain here, and for me to remain king.”

Thor looked dumbfounded, as if all his nightmares were coming true. He grimaced, looking in pain, when he asked, “For the throne?”

Loki thought about it, pulling a face as he navigated his mind for the right response. The he smiled and said, “Yes.”

Thor's expression morphed from pain to rage as he held out his hand, presumably to summon Mjölnir. Nothing happened. Thor turned to look at the casket; the hammer must have been with him. Loki breathed out a sigh of relief. Kyr had thought of everything.

“It's no use,” Loki said. “The tether is veiling you from both Asgard and the hammer. It's quite clever actually.”

“Why?” Thor asked, taking steps towards Loki. Loki backed away, pointing at Thor to keep his distance. “Why would you find me and bring me back when you could have just left me in my prison and remain king without opposition?”

“Because it's boring,” Loki said. “It lacks sophistication. I got you back from the Svartálfar because I could. However, I quite like being king, so as you can see, a bit of a dilemma.”

“Loki,” Thor growled, advancing towards him again.

Loki held out his hand and Gungnir flew through the air, spinning all the way towards Loki, right into his fingers. He pointed it at Thor. “I wouldn't. You'll find you're not quite yourself at the moment.”

Thor was shaking his head. “This is not the Loki I know.”

“Then you should presume that it may be the Loki you don't know,” Loki said slowly, thinking it over. “Now, don't be alarmed, but there are some Frost Giants headed in your direction. They're going to make sure you're comfortable.”

“Why?” Thor growled out. “Why not just take my life and be done with it?”

“Like I said, I could never kill you,” Loki said most earnestly. For good measure, he smiled and added, “Not when I could have you as my prisoner.”

“Loki, listen to me-”

“I can't,” Loki said, taking in Thor's stricken expression. “I have business... to which only a king can attend. Be well. Brother.”

Thor frowned, his eyes boring into Loki's. Loki tried to muster a smile, but had run out of shields of bravado. The tears that blurred his eyes came as a relief. He lifted the simple veil that had kept him hidden and called out, his voice shaky and betraying him, “Heimdall!”

The last thing he heard was Thor crying out, “Loki!”

# *

Loki strode through the dome with purpose, Jotun snow cooling on his face and in his hair, Thor's kiss still warm on his lips. He didn't get far, not with Heimdall who saw him arrive alone and walked straight into his path, blocking it. Well, Loki thought, this was interesting. He knew at least one way it could play out here; Heimdall an ice sculpture. Loki came to a halt, looking away from Heimdall to discard the dark thought belonging to another Loki in another realm. _Hopefully_ belonging to another Loki in another realm.

“My King,” Heimdall said, his voice low and his gaze intense. 

Loki held up his hand to silence the gatekeeper and avoid the predictable upcoming exchange. “I did not hide from your gaze. Svartalfheim is a realm filled with magic. Be glad you could see as much as they allowed you to. Alflyse refused talks unless they were veiled from Asgard.”

“And you agreed?”

“I wanted to find Thor,” Loki said. “It was a small price to pay.”

“But you return from Jotunheim,” Heimdall said, amber eyes filled with suspicion. “Alone.”

Loki sighed and rolled his eyes, for whatever little time that gave him to conjure up a lie. “Yes.”

“Why?”

That was a good question, Loki thought, one he didn't quite have the answers for. So instead he looked affronted and said, “Would you question Odin like this?”

“No,” Heimdall said. “Your father never hid his actions and intentions from me.”

This time the eye-roll was not for show. “Well, aren't you the lucky one?”

Loki stepped around Heimdall, only to have the gatekeeper match him step for step and blockade his path once again. Loki gave him a weary look. “The queen will ask the questions I am asking you. Even Odin had to answer to the queen.”

Fair point, Loki thought. “We know where Thor is. Sif and the others have gone ahead to find him. I have returned to tell the queen she need not mourn the loss of her son, and to tell her there will be no war with Jotunheim. I have also spoken with Laufey. He sees I have not been expelled from Asgard, and I have reassured him that we know he played no part in Thor's disappearance. Will that explanation suffice?”

“I cannot see Thor's friends,” Heimdall said.

“They are under veil on Nornheim. They will remain that way until Thor is safe and returned to Asgard and we know who was behind his incarceration.” 

“Trolls?” Heimdall asked, frowning. 

“Apparently not as stupid as they look,” Loki said, earning a frown of disapproval. Heimdall opened his mouth to ask more, but Loki cut him off. “I can continue to explain to you, or explain to the queen. I do not have the time to explain to both. Lady Sif is expecting me to return to Nornheim as soon as I have relayed the news. May I?”

Heimdall obediently stepped out of Loki's way, his gaze never wavering from Loki. He bowed his head slightly and Loki stomped off ahead. Loki's feet came to a stop when Heimdall called out and said, “I will await your return. To send you to Nornheim.”

Loki narrowed his eyes, before turning back to aim a big smile at Heimdall. “I will make my way back on the hour.”

“Yes, my king,” Heimdall said, more like a warning than a promise. But Loki was walking away now, steps not willing to falter any further.

He returned to the palace swiftly, doing his best not to be seen by anyone who might alert the queen of his presence. In his chambers, he took off his coat and replaced it with another, one with high collars, its sleeves long enough to cover missing tethers, and its non-existent pockets deep enough to veil precious weapons. It was pure black and without any royal ostentatiousness. Smoothing down a sleeve, he thought to himself, hmm, potential Avengers material. 

The weapons vault was the second stop, the destroyer not alarmed at all by the presence of the king. Gungnir in hand, he left the vault carrying out what he had carried in, the guards bowing their heads. Next stop, the nearest mirror. But his feet faltered after all. Something in his mind was almost prodding his shoulder to walk in a different direction. Looking at Gungnir, he thought, don't be afraid, today I save Asgard. Gungnir's answer was a hum of satisfaction that travelled all the way up Loki's arm. Still, the prodding did not stop, not until Loki changed his path and was standing at the doors of the healing chamber.

Loki walked in to find his father still asleep, attended by two guards. He nodded at the guards to leave, staying near the threshold until they had gone, shutting the doors behind him. He tentatively approached the bed, watching Odin in silence for a while. The last time Loki had seen him, even in this state, he had seemed a king. Now he seemed like an old man. He seemed just as tired as Laufey. Peace, Loki was beginning to realise, was exhausting. Odin's spear seemed heavy in his hold, not liking that thought at all. Loki swallowed, looking at Gungnir and then at Odin. 

“Did you ever worry I might become king?” Odin was of course silent, hiding under the hum of the healing bed. “You must have. You must have seen the things mother has seen, and worried what chaos your Jotun son could bring. And yet... you joined me to Thor, a prince of the realm. You are either an incredibly foolish old man, or a foolishly brave king. Possibly both.”

Loki blinked away the burning his eyes and strengthened his grip on Gungnir, holding it tight by his side. He gave Odin one last look, and turned on his heel. No prodding would stop him now, no errant thought. All his tricks had been played, all predictions had been met. Most importantly, he was the King of Asgard, the only one who could wield the powerful Gungnir, the spear whose destiny it was to slay a serpent. 

Loki rushed through Thor's chambers, going straight to the large mirror, pressing his palm against its cool surface and looking beyond that silky smooth cloth of the cosmos to find the faces of those he knew reflected in nearby surfaces. And there it was, a face he knew well, one that created an unexpected warmth to bloom in his chest. A face that looked as exhausted as Loki felt, smudged with dirt and marred by a cut to the mouth and a bruise to the cheek. 

The battle on Midgard already begun. It was high time Loki returned.


	16. Chapter 16

Even a god, it appeared, was prone to suffering the draining affects of too much dark magic. Loki stepped into the corridor, wobbling in front of a glass door. He was upright for a moment, but then Midgard tilted left, and he tilted right, crashing to the floor with a thump, everything around him spinning fast, causing rebellion in his guts. He felt cold, as if his atoms were trying to shake apart, or struggling to fuse together. Loki closed his eyes for a moment, letting his body find its bearings before he could open them again to stare down at the dark floor before him.

“Holy shit. Natasha!” Those were the sweet tones of Barton, and it was also him crouching down by Loki, pawing at him. “Hey, you with us?”

More footsteps, and then the familiar shape of Romanoff, who started to help Loki up with Barton, telling him, “You look like crap.”

“You flatter me,” Loki said, finding his feet, the cold receding slowly. 

“I've seen week old roadkill with more life,” Barton said. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Oh, here and there,” Loki said, allowing himself to be herded into a small room, a healing chamber by the looks of it. He let himself be helped to a bed, where he sat on the edge, letting his equilibrium return. He knew this place. It still wore the traces of his mother's magic. Looking at Romanoff, he asked, “Where are we?”

“You don't remember?” she asked with a frown. “The New Mexico compound.”

“Yeah. Last we saw you were wrapped around a gold stick laughing like a crazy person,” Barton said.

Loki narrowed his eyes at Barton. “Eloquently put.”

“Fury's not a happy man right now,” Barton said. Loki opened his mouth to speak, but Barton cut him off. “Yeah, we all know, it's hard to tell, but seriously, you can tell.”

“Director Fury? Not happy?” Loki asked innocently. “I find it hard to believe.”

“Well, believe it,” Fury said, throwing the doors open and making his presence felt much like a tornado. 

He was followed in by Rogers and Stark, both men wearing bruises that looked recent. Behind them was a third dishevelled looking man Loki didn't recognise, but did find of immediate interest, waves of curling dark magic rolling off him like poisonous vines. In his crumpled clothes, hair that could be cut better and glasses that made him seem as though he was frowning even when he wasn't, he could be someone invisible, a man who would go unnoticed by many. But Loki saw it, he saw the green beast within; a savage and beautiful beast.

“What the _hell_ do you think you're playing it?” Fury demanded. “You bring a damn giant snake into my world and then disappear with the only thing that might kill it?”

“What's the matter? Heat get too much? Needed to cool off?” Stark asked, leaving Loki staring at him, musing over his wonderfully specific jibes.

“I take it you're rescinding your invitation for me to join the Avengers,” Loki said dryly, looking at Fury.

“This isn't a joke,” Rogers said so quietly Loki found his tongue lose its usual sharp edge. “You might be the only person who can help us bring this thing down-”

“After he brought it here,” Stark reminded everyone.

“We all know why it's here.” Rogers held up a hand to silence Stark. Looking straight at Loki, Rogers said, “The point is, it's _here_ , and we need to stop it before it does any more damage. All of us.”

Loki felt petulant, asking, “I returned, did I not?”

“But are you gonna stick around?” Loki jutted his chin out, looking down his nose at Rogers. Rogers folded his arms across his chest. 

Loki looked away at the floor, turning a forming grimace into a smile. Nodding at Rogers he said, “Of course.”

Rogers gave him a nod, as they both held each other's gaze. “Okay then.”

The room was quiet for a moment, strangely tense. It was Fury who broke the tension by heading to the doors, commanding, “Briefing. Now.”

Romanoff gave Loki a nod, while Barton looked his usual sour self, following his assassin friend out with Fury. Stark walked off with Banner, his chatter causing the most glorious of confused expressions on Banner's face. Rogers watched them leave before turning back to Loki with a soft expression that stole Loki's nerve, and cut his dry wit short.

“That was some errand. I was afraid you weren't coming back,” Rogers said quietly.

“Were you?” Loki asked. “Such lack of faith, Captain.”

“I figure there have to be people who don't want you squaring up to a giant energy-sucking snake monster. People who were glad you went back to them.”

Loki shrugged. “They have been taken care of.”

Rogers arched a brow. “By which you mean?”

Loki turned towards the door, heading out into the corridor with Rogers. “By which I mean, safe and sound, out of harm's way.”

“I never took you for the sentimental type,” Rogers said as Loki mutely walked at his side, the spear of Odin feeling like a burden inside his coat.

# *

“You're in New Mexico,” Loki said, looking at the others seated around the table. “Clearly the serpent is still on its way here.”

Rogers was shaking his head, where he sat opposite Loki. “The best we've been able to do is temporarily drive it underground, but it just comes back again, bigger and stronger.”

“Banner might know why we've been able to send it into hiding,” Stark said. 

Fury turned in his seat to eye Banner, who looked uncomfortable on the spot, though the green shadow behind him was anything but uncomfortable, waiting in silence and watching Fury with discontent.

“The latest readings show the, uh... serpent, is emitting particular bursts of radiation, usually during major physical events like shape shifting, feeding and attacking. One of these energy signatures has been showing up not only when it shape shifts, but also when it expels any excess after overfeeding. This looks like it's happening with some regularity, between feeding and growth spurts.”

Rogers made a face and Stark helpfully said, “Yeah, it gorges until it's sick.”

“What does that mean in terms of taking this thing down?” Barton asked. 

“We think, it has to expel the excess or otherwise its in danger of completely destabilising during its expansion stage,” Stark said. 

Banner nodded and said, “It's why you've been able to drive it back. It needs to level out its energy intake to prevent destabilisation, and it can't do that while its under attack.” 

“So it feeds on energy, but too much and it might burst open?” Romanoff asked, receiving a popping nose of confirmation from Stark as he pointed at her.

“Okay,” Rogers said, nodding thoughtfully. “We need to pinpoint its location, track it down and wait until it goes into stabilising mode. Then throw everything we've got at it.”

“We _have_ been throwing everything we've got at it, Captain,” Stark said. “It's not enough. We need something that can smash it to pieces when it's most likely to fall apart.”

Everyone's eyes, no matter how discreetly turned to Banner, behind whom green seemed to bloom, like a protective haze. Banner, however, looked across the table at Loki and said, “What about the magical spear which magically disappeared from the compound?”

All eyes now turned to Loki, and he smiled in response, putting both his hands on the table before him. Seconds later, Gungnir shimmered to life in his hands. Stark narrowed his eyes at Loki. “You couldn't just open with that?”

Loki grinned. “No.”

“Loki,” Rogers said, in his most Captain-like tone.

Loki gave him a conceding nod, lifting his hands in surrender. “This is Gungnir, the staff that will kill the serpent.”

“How did you get it loose?” Barton asked.

Loki grimaced. “A complicated and lengthy tale.”

“Give us the Cliff Notes version,” Stark said. 

Loki scowled at him and turned his gaze to Barton who flatly explained, “The short version.”

Loki arched a brow and nodded. “The staff previously in your possession was a beacon to draw me back to Asgard. This is not that staff. This is the true Gungnir, the spear of Odin.”

“Don't we need your buddy Thor to, what was it, _wield_ this thing?” Stark asked.

“Gungnir can only be wielded by a king of Asgard,” Loki explained. “Thor is no longer king.”

Rogers seemed to catch on, if his expression was anything to go by, just before Romanoff asked, “Then who is?”

Loki smiled and lifted Gungnir in answer. “He who wields the spear, of course.”

Everyone was staring a him, looking confused. This was not the response he had expected at all, unless Midgardian celebration really was this dull.

“Let me see if I have this right,” Fury said. “You ran off to become king so you could be the one who gets to run the snake through?”

“That's some ego you've got there,” Stark said slowly, before grinning and leaning in to pat him hard on the arm. “If we don't all turn into snake bait, I'm buying you a drink.”

Both Banner and the beast no one could see wore the same expression of curiosity. Banner said, “That's... a whole lot of crazy you've got going on there.”

Rogers said nothing. He was looking at the table, his face like an unmoving mask. There was something tight about his mouth, still about his eyes that made Loki sit ill at ease. The look Romanoff was giving him was no better. She had read him with her clever eyes, so had Barton who knew the myths, who could see a mark from a mile away. They knew why Loki held the spear, they knew glory had little do with his reasoning, no matter how much he would have had them believe it too.

Fury was nodding. “Okay, we've got a weapon and we've got a weakness. Captain? I want a plan of attack.”

Rogers nodded. “Doctor Banner, we're going to need the next rest window from you. We're going to go to it, before _it_ can come to us.”

“Doctor Banner?” Fury said, nodding to Banner. “You heard what the man said.”

“I'll be in my lab.” Banner was nodding and getting up, Stark out of his seat and following as if the two were attached by an invisible umbilical cord. Even the beast in Banner's shadow paid Stark no attention. 

“A word?” Fury said, nodding to both Romanoff and Barton. 

Loki was left with Rogers who was watching Romanoff and Barton leaving, three pairs of eyes silently communicating with each other as they parted ways. When Rogers turned his gaze to Loki, it may as well have been the same eyes watching him on Jotunheim, filled with hurt and betrayal. Loki just scowled in confusion before laughing quietly.

Grinning, he said, “I thought you'd be pleased. I return with the answer to our problems.”

Rogers was frowning at the table. “Do you remember just before you left, I told you nobody was looking for a sacrificial lamb?”

Loki grinned. “I am not offering myself as a sacrifice.”

Rogers stared at Loki. “You left the second it looked like the serpent might kill Thor, and now you're back, the only person who can use a weapon that can kill it.”

“Thor was fated to die as a result of killing the beast,” Loki said. “The fates did not anticipate the serpent dying at the hands of another.”

“And what if they did?” Rogers asked. “It's kind of their thing, isn't it?”

Oh, of course they had, Loki thought. The fates spun threads for all eventualities, did they not? Even this, Gungnir in Loki's hands, even this was spun by them. Loki nodded. “Then so be it.”

Rogers smiled, but it was the saddest smile Loki had ever seen. “He must be something, if you're willing to die for him.”

Not just him, Loki thought, looking at the fading bruises marring the face before him. “I cannot let this beast destroy that which is precious to me.”

Rogers nodded, still smiling as he got up from the table, slowly walking to the door. Stopping by it, he looked back at Loki and said, “Know something? I don't really believe in fate. People? Yes. Fate, not so much.”

Loki smiled in agreement, even if Gungnir shuddered with distaste.

# *

Loki walked through the compound, silent and sunk in thought. Everyone was waiting on Banner. Romanoff and Barton were no doubt cooing at weapons somewhere. Rogers was nowhere to be found, but if Loki knew him at all, he was probably taking his frustrations out on a punching sack. Stark and Banner were both in one of the laboratories, Loki found as he walked past a partially frosted window.

Banner was scowling at a screen lit with information, whilst Stark was walking around the laboratory, his mouth moving as fast as usual, hands moving just as fast. Banner's serious expression broke and he laughed. Loki moved into a shadow and watched how even the beast seemed soothed, his curious eyes following Stark from all the reflective surfaces of the room.

Loki could catch wisps of conversation. Leaning close to a window, he caught Banner telling Stark, “You realise there's a good chance you're all going to die horribly, right?”

“I realise you used the words 'you're all' and not 'we're all,” Stark replied.

“Yeah,” Banner said in his slow sleepy style. “The big guy's kind of indestructible. Sorry.”

“Don't apologise. This is why we need you suiting up with us,” Stark said, pointing at Banner.

Banner was shaking his head. “I don't get a suit of armour. I'm exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare.”

Loki moved away, scowling as he thought of those places where his body still bore the tint of illness. Inside the laboratory, the beast seemed to have withdrawn deeper into the shadows. Loki moved on, leaving Banner and Stark to their Midgardian science. After a while, his feet followed the sound of Fury's voice. Rounding a corner, he saw the man himself, and another he hadn't seen in some time.

“Son of Coul. It's been too long. How I miss those early days on Midgard when you courted my attentions,” Loki said, approaching them both.

Coulson tilted his head ever so slightly and in his usual bland fashion replied, “Very special for me too, sir.”

Loki grinned at Coulson, before tempering the grin on seeing Fury's unamused face. “Do I detect trouble in our small paradise?”

“Not your concern,” Fury said impatiently, hands going to his hips as he sighed and told Coulson, “Just get them hell away from here. They're not getting their equipment back and it's not safe for them to be here. If they don't leave, put them in a cell. And Loki-”

But Loki was already around the corner, making his way to more interesting spaces. After all, there wasn't much to do until their inevitable doom and he did bore easily. And the finger of fate was once again prodding him in directions not of his choosing.

# *

“- at the very least an assurance that you're going to give me back my work.”

“I'm sorry, Ma'am, that's not my call. Now, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the compound.”

“I will _not_ -”

“Hey! Get your hands off her!”

Loki watched, veiled whilst people milled around him paying him no attention. There were three of them, two women and a man. He couldn't see the faces of the women, their backs to him. The man with them was moving between the angrier of the women, trying to herd her away from an agent. Loki stepped forward a little, the man's face familiar to him. 

_Selvig_ , something hissed in his mind. It wasn't a memory. Or was it? Loki took another step and images turned through his mind like the pages of a book. He'd seen these images before, in brief. Not through the mirror, not through his mother's magic. It was when he had touched the casket in which Thor had been trapped. Thor knew this man, and so did Loki. No, Loki shook his head, another Thor, another Loki knew this man. 

Both women turned around with Selvig, the angrier of the two stomping on ahead and stopping Loki in his tracks. 

_Come on, what happened to you on Earth that turned you so soft? Don't tell me it was that woman!_ Loki heard the sound of his own voice, growling with rage. _Oh. It was. Well, maybe, when we're finished here, I'll pay her a visit myself!_

Loki jerked back from the memory, eyes wide open as he watched her, the woman, her features sterner than they ought to have been, morphed by her anger. He stepped into her path, his unveiling effortless, making it appear as if he had simply stepped out of a shadow.

“Jane,” he said, trying the name out, finding it strange on his tongue. “Foster.”

She stopped to scowl. “What?”

She was pushed aside by her black-haired and pale-skinned companion, whose mouth was a dark slash of red. “I'm Darcy, and you look like another man in black up to no good.”

Loki tilted his head at her, wondering if she hailed from the same gene pool as Stark. “I seek to be of help. I understand my colleagues have something of yours.”

Selvig was quietly watching him, a slight frown denting his forehead. Loki wondered if this Midgardian could feel at some level that he was connected to an Asgardian, in another reality, in countless realities. Did it feel like terror or a fading memory of a nonsensical dream?

“They have my life's work In there,” Foster answered, the anger turning to frustration, her emotions hideously clear in her shining eyes. “They have only _everything_ that means anything to me.”

“If they're your colleagues, why are you out here asking questions?” Selvig asked, looking suspicious. “Should you be in there with them?”

“Some of us are more prone to be moved by the plight of another,” Loki said softly, looking down at Foster, all sympathy and warmth. “I understand what it is to be treated unfairly.”

What unfairness did he speak of? Loki looked away from her and deep into himself. How had her face thrown him into a pit of memories that made his own indistinguishable from everything he had been witness to through the prism of black magic? No, he told himself, you speak for the spectre, not yourself. You, Loki of Asgard, do what you want. Where is the unfairness in that?

Foster looked hopeful as she stared up at him. “If I can get my work back, you have no idea what that would mean to me.”

Loki nodded, placing a placating hand on her arm. “I will see what I can do. But you must leave this place for now. There is danger here. Your work is of no value to you if you are dead.”

“Is that some kind of threat? Because that sounds like a threat,” Darcy said, pushing herself into Loki's space. He had no choice but to be impressed.

“A warning,” Loki said. “Something dangerous is headed in this direction and we are all in its path. You don't want to be here when it arrives.”

“From where?” Foster asked, not looking afraid at all. He scowled at her in question. She gave him a nod and pointed skywards. “From... up there?”

Loki frowned, intrigued. “I'm not sure what you're asking me.”

“It's not the first time, is it?” Foster asked, her mouth half an excited smile. “That's the atmospheric disturbance my equipment picked up. Something up there. I know it.”

It was his mother's beacon Foster had registered on her equipment. She had recorded the opening of the doorway from Asgard to Earth. This little Midgardian, had captured a piece of Asgard in her science. Loki told her, “I wouldn't know.”

“That totally means yes,” Darcy said, lifting up her hand at Selvig, who held it and pushed it down, earning a disapproving pout.

Foster was looking up at the sky, as if she might just open a portal right here and swoop upwards. Right up to Asgard. Straight into Thor's arms perhaps where he would know her instantly, the woman who softened his heart, which had so thirsted for war once.

“I'll see what I can do for you,” Loki said quietly. 

“Sir?” Loki turned to see a SHIELD agent nervously hovering close by. “Sir, Captain Rogers is asking for you.” 

Loki gave Foster and her companions a nod, turning away and following the agent, a gnawing ugly feeling in the middle of his gut.

# *

Loki followed the agent until Rogers stepped out into the corridor, resplendent in blue. He could have passed for a god walking the halls of Asgard. Loki couldn't help but smile and tell Rogers, “I approve.”

Rogers gave him a disapproving look, albeit with a smile, dismissing the agent with a nod. “Banner's got a location. We're good to go.”

Loki nodded towards the attire Rogers wore. “Will uniforms be mandatory?”

“Asgardians have something against uniforms?” Rogers asked.

“The opposite. When we march into realms, our armour and decorations shout, look at us, here we are, the victors.” Loki looked at Rogers and the shield he held strapped to one arm. “Is that what yours says? Here comes the conqueror of all fears. Bravest of the brave.”

Rogers looked down at his shield and smiled at Loki. “I'd like to think it says, here we are, protectors of this world.”

“And if we can't be the protectors,” Stark said from down the corridor, prompting Loki to turn and see him in his iron suit, his faceplate lifted. “Here we are, the Avengers.”

The faceplate came down, hiding the last of Stark. Iron Man gave Loki a stiff nod, telling him in his tinny voice, “Time to suit up, Trick or Treat.”

With that, he marched off. Loki looked back at Rogers who had an amused look on his face as he told Loki, “Just, try to be more subtle than shell-head over there.”

Loki nodded, half-listening, extending his arm and watching Gungnir shimmer to life. On Asgard, Loki would wear his helmet, the decorations of war armour. But this wasn't Asgard, nor was it any of the realms with which Asgard had fought many a war. This was Midgard. Here, there was no need to be as resplendent as an Asgardian king. 

He looked at Rogers and said, “I have my armour.”

Rogers reached back and pulled on his cowl, hiding half of his face, and somehow managing to look altogether a different person. He nodded at Loki and told him, his tone harder than Loki had ever heard it, “Let's move out.”

Off he marched with the stride of a soldier, Loki following behind, watching him closely. Gungnir was trembling, Loki could feel its fear. An Asgardian follow a mere mortal? Of course the spear of Odin trembled. Loki held it out and touched it to the wall, telling it to be calm. Telling it to seek out her touch still warm in his palm, the woman, seek out her precious science. 

_To save Asgard_ , Loki thought at the spear, _you must break her bridge of knowledge to our realm_. 

The lights flickered above, Rogers stopping ahead to look up at the ceiling. The corridor plunged into complete darkness. Before Rogers could say anything, the lights were back on, accompanied by the low hum of cool air being pumped into the compound. Somewhere close to them, there would be machines rendered useless, but who would notice in all this madness?

“Must be the generators,” Rogers said, looking at Loki with a frown. “Come on. The others are waiting.”

Loki followed, with Gungnir at peace, Asgard safe from intruders for a little while longer.


	17. Chapter 17

Within the compound was a waiting black flying machine, its wings curled close, making it look like a mechanical bat. Coulson ushered them inside with his usual bland efficiency. Or at least, he did until Rogers walked past him, clapping a hand on the shoulder as he went. Coulson's smile was the most genuine Loki had ever seen it, childish warmth lighting up his eyes. Loki looked at Coulson, wondering if men could have heroes; wasn't that the obsession of children who knew no better and could still hope beyond the tarnish of reality?

Loki walked up the ramp, smirking at Coulson. “It's like standing in the embrace of the sun, is it not?”

“Ignore him,” Barton said from behind Loki, “He's Just jealous.”

“Jealous?” Loki asked, walking on and taking a seat inside the special SHIELD contraption. He looked across at Rogers, who seemed preoccupied, strapping himself in next to Loki. “Unthinkable.”

Banner was already there, seated opposite Rogers, his eyes fixed on a tablet in his hands, brow dented in concentration. Around him, the aura of the beast was somewhat agitated, scowling as he looked about their enclosure. Loki followed his gaze, watching the hatch close. It appeared the plane only held Loki, Barton, Romanoff, Rogers, Coulson and a decidedly shifty looking SHIELD pilot.

“Where is Stark?” Loki asked.

“He's taking the scenic route,” Barton said, settling down next to Banner, earning no notice from the scientist, but definitely earning a low growl of suspicion from the green shadow. A growl that transferred to Romanoff as she walked past to sit in the co-pilot's seat.

Loki ignored her in favour of watching Banner's shadow. Was the beast the childish heart of Banner, as Rogers was that of Coulson? The shadow of the beast was aware of Loki, tilting his head to look at him, eyes narrowing with suspicion. Loki tilted his own head, mirroring the beast, wondering exactly how much a shadow, an aura, could really see.

Banner looked up and sighed, asking Loki, “What?”

Loki blinked. Coulson looked up from where he may or may not have been basking in the aura of Rogers. Barton was already scowling at Loki as if he knew everything everywhere was Loki's fault. Rogers looked from Banner to Loki with that expression of his, curious while remaining polite and within all respectable boundaries. It was no surprise that Rogers was the only one capable of shifting that mask Coulson wore so effectively all the time.

Loki waved a hand in the direction of his own face. “The eye glasses. Very fetching. Barton, have you ever considered the use of such a thing? It may improve your popularity, not to mention your atrocious aim.”

Barton told Banner, “Ignore him. He's an idiot.”

Loki grinned, jolting slightly as the plane took off before slipping into a smooth glide. He looked at Banner and asked, “What news of the beast, Doctor Banner? I had anticipated it would be in New Mexico by now, suckling on the remnants of Asgardian magic.”

“Suckling.” Banner made a face and the beast within him seemed to still and scowl, remaining oddly calm. “Um... well, I think it got a little confused.”

“Confused?” Rogers asked.

“It was headed towards New Mexico, pretty much in a straight line, until days ago when it just stopped and then veered off towards Colorado. But now, from the newest data it looks like it's regained its sense of direction,” Banner said, holding up the tablet to show a grid with what appeared to be the serpent's current journey.

Coulson looked at the tablet, taking it, frowning in concentration. “Those were the days the alien artefact was missing.”

“I'm sitting right here,” Loki said blandly, which got a snort of amusement out of Barton.

“Sorry,” Coulson said, not sorry at all, handing back the tablet to Banner.

“Agent Coulson does have a point,” Rogers said thoughtfully, not noticing that Coulson may have inflated twice his size with pride. “When the spear disappeared, the snake slowed down, went off course. Now you're back with the real spear, it's moving again. But what's it moving towards? New Mexico? Or you?”

Loki shrugged. “It could be either. One is a site where a beacon was cast, strong enough for the beast and its creator. The other is filled to the brim with Asgardian magic and holds one of the most powerful weapons in creation. Either way, the serpent is headed to its demise.”

Rogers was about to say something, but Banner cut him off. “Creator. You... you created a world eating snake?”

Loki held up his hands. “An accident, I assure you.”

Banner was nodding. “So, this thing might be Frankenstein's monster trying to meet its maker?”

“Is that what monsters do?” Loki asked serenely. “Angrily hound their makers?”

Banner smiled serenely, the beast momentarily solidifying behind him, rising up with a scowl. When Banner shook his head, it seemed to die down again, irritated. Banner didn't answer the question, returning to his tablet, tapping his fingers on the screen as Loki marvelled at his control, sighing that he wasn't going to see the hulking beast within Banner become real anytime soon.

Coulson moved away from Rogers to block Loki's view of Banner, falling into quiet conversation with both the scientist and Barton. Loki grinned, shaking his head. There really was no better way of ousting a person from a conversation than presenting a firm behind to be looked at. Even Loki had to appreciate such a strategy, which he did. Sadly, it left him under the attention of Rogers, who was looking at Loki as if he were already a victim of the serpent.

Loki rolled his eyes and asked, “What?”

Roger shook his head. “I was just thinking.”

“A thinker,” Loki said, looking as impressed as he could muster. “If only I were not already betrothed.”

Rogers smiled, eyes sparkling with amusement. “Talking of _betrothed_ , how'd you get the spear off Thor anyway?”

“I asked for it very nicely,” Loki said. Though his face was half-hidden behind a cowl, Rogers was definitely arching a brow at Loki. Loki shrugged. “I can be nice.”

“I'm sure you can,” Rogers said. “I just wonder if he knew he was handing over more than just a weapon.”

Loki looked away, eyeing Romanoff's flame hair as she co-piloted with intense focus, not that it was easy to discern exactly where her focus lay. “You don't believe in fate.”

Rogers seemed to silently ponder Loki's remark, before nodding slowly. “I believe... I believe we all have the power to determine our own place in the universe. And if there is such a thing as fate, I don't believe in going down without a fight. You said you could see things in other realities, but they don't have to be your _fate_. They're someone else's choices, and you don't have to make the same choices. Carrying the spear doesn't have to mean dying in someone else's place.”

Loki realised his mouth had opened to say something, words never surfacing. He seemed to be holding his breath, staring at Rogers, the Midgardian who would dare teach a son of Odin to fight the fates and would fight them himself if need be. What beautiful arrogance. Loki's blurred sight made Rogers seem as if light was glowing out of him, as if like Banner's beast, he was the creature, the real Rogers hidden away somewhere deep within the walls of muscle.

Loki managed a shaky smile, blindly staring at Rogers. “Here I was thinking you're just a pretty face, Steven.”

Rogers was nodding, biting his bottom lip. His face seemed to have coloured somewhat. After a moment, he said, “You know what I think?”

“Please, do share,” Loki said, looking away, blinking away the burn from his eyes.

“I think you're an ass,” Rogers said. Loki looked at him with pleasant surprise. Rogers turned away and looked ahead, adding. “Avengers material, right?”

Loki gave a quiet laugh of surprise. “And I was going to put my precious life on the line for you.”

Rogers looked at him with a smirk. “Yeah? For all I know, you're doing all this just to drive Thor crazy.”

Loki removed his attention from Rogers, telling him, “Suddenly Barton's beginning to look much more attractive.”

“Hey, Cap,” Barton said. “If we make it out alive, permission to tape his mouth shut?”

“Get in line,” Banner muttered, the beast smiling at Loki in a terribly unnerving way.

 

 

# *

It was pitch black night when they arrived at their destination, landing in a small forest clearing, Stark hitting the ground just as they all walked down the ramp of the plane. Loki could feel the presence of the beast, and surely the beast could feel him too.

Rogers looked at Banner who was watching the tablet. “Doctor, keep an eye on what the snake's doing. Natasha, keep an eye on the doctor.”

Banner scowled, looked at Romanoff who looked back at him and shrugged, pulling out a handgun and spinning it in her palm. Banner just muttered an unsure, “Okay.”

“Stark? Up high?” Rogers said, receiving a salute from Stark, before he jetted up high and continued to hover above them.

Rogers looked at Loki and said, “Take your shot if you can, we'll be there right there with you.”

“To catch me when I fall, no doubt,” Loki said with a smirk, while Barton snapped his bow open.

“We'll be there whatever happens,” Rogers answered firmly. He turned to Coulson. “Agent?”

Coulson pulled out his gun, which made Loki arch his brow. Coulson blandly told him, “I left my mythical demon killing spear at home.”

Loki extended his arm and allowed Gungnir out of its veil. “No matter. One ought to be enough.”

Loki, Barton, Rogers and Coulson walked into the dense forest together, Rogers staying close, Barton watching their backs. The others became voices staying with him through a small earpiece.

 _“The readings are showing high spikes in energy coming from the creature,”_ Banner said. _It's... well, it's puking its guts out like crazy right now.”_

 _“Been there, done that,”_ Stark said. _“Got a sighting. About a fifty yards to your right, Cap. I'm moving in.”_

Rogers looked across at Loki, who Loki felt the pull of the serpent, but its strength was contrary to the position Stark had pointed out. Loki looked into the dark, where Stark had sighting of the beast. He gave Rogers a nod, who predictably walked on ahead of Loki, so eager to put himself in danger ahead of anyone else. As Barton came close, Loki opened his hand in the direction of Rogers, sending on an illusion, whilst simultaneously veiling himself. The illusion walked on, Barton following behind.

Loki headed towards the pull of the serpent. It proved to be the right decision when he entered a perfectly circular clearing, the ground showing what forest stood here once had recently been flattened, the smell of burning in the air, mixed in with that of dirt and wood. At the dead centre of the clearing was the spectre, standing with his eyes closed, as if he was asleep on his feet. He looked as he had when they met last, his attire beaten and worn, his hair longer than Loki's, damp and greasy. Loki frowned, eyeing the spectre carefully, unsure of what he was seeing. The spectre opened his eyes, looking sideways and grinning.

“We know you are there, Father,” he said. “Show yourself.”

Ah, Loki thought, as he unveiled himself, keeping Gungnir hidden. The creature tilted his head, grin widening. His complexion rippled and for a moment one half of his face darkened to a bluer hue.

Loki asked him, “What is this meant to be?”

“You. The other you. The one who knows hunger,” came the quiet and measured reply. “You... disliked him. Feared him.”

“And you would know this, how?” Loki asked.

“You are our father,” came the calm reply. “Your magic runs through our veins. We know your hates. And your loves. Your wants.”

Loki felt anger simmering inside him as he glared. “You think you know my mind?”

The creature blurred into smoke, before reintegrating to look like Thor, resplendent in Asgardian finery, his hair like a lion's mane. His blue gaze had that berserker heat, his form that of a powerful god. Loki took a step backwards as the pretender glided towards him, forcing Loki's back up against a tree. The creature moved smoothly into his space, tilting its head at Loki, its mask looking so perfect it seemed abhorrent.

“Or perhaps you prefer this,” the creature hissed, effortlessly morphing into Rogers, twisting pleasant features into something dead and unfeeling.

Loki swallowed, nodding. “Much better.”

The creature frowned as Loki unveiled Gungnir just before he drove it forward, hard. Wearing the mask of Steve Rogers, the creature looked down at the spear and then up at Loki with a bright grin. Loki frowned, blinking at the creature, watching it turn to smoke around the spear and disappear. Loki stumbled away from the tree, finding the creature still in the guise of the spectre, standing in the middle of the clearing from where it hadn't moved at all. It's eyes had turned completely black in their hollow sockets and it was slowly blinking at the spear with open curiosity.

“Are you here to kill us?” he asked, voice low and rough.

Loki was quiet for a moment, pondering what lies to tell. Eventually, he said, “Yes.”

The creature nodded, head turning towards the ground, before his gaze shifted back to Loki again. “Why?”

“Your hunger is indiscriminate. It is without rage or reason. It cannot to be curbed nor cured. You will bring about the end of everything, and I... I am compelled to not stand idly by as you do that,” Loki said evenly.

The creature smiled, black eyes clearing, a mirror of Loki's own eyes. “We should make use of rage and reason, which you bring with you.”

Loki heard the sound of gunfire in the distance, followed by the sounds of short sharp blasts, all from the direction of Rogers and the others. Loki turned his head towards the noise, frowning, before turning back to see the creature had moved almost within touching distance. Loki's grip on Gungnir tightened.

“You are not the only one who can be in two places at once,” the creature said, its words coming out stuttered. It smiled and added, “But we cast no illusions. We are. Lokison. Lokidaughter. We are the serpent. We are the wolf. We can be many. You can only pretend.”

Loki was staring, his mind slowly catching up. “What did you mean I bring rage and reason?”

The creature tilted his head and grinned. “Dark magic. Sustenance. We will feed well.”

In a burst of black, the creature disappeared, leaving Loki breathless and wide-eyed. Loki told the others, “Get Banner away from here. The creature intends to make a feast of him.”

 _“What?”_ Stark's asked in the strange tones of the Iron Man.

“Banner's monster,” Loki said, running back the way he had come.

 _“What the hell?”_ Barton snapped. _“Cap, he was right here.”_

 _“Loki, where are you?”_ Rogers sounded both worried and annoyed.

“Headed back to Banner and Romanoff,” Loki said.

 _“Do you have the snake in your sight?”_ Rogers asked.

“No,” Loki said, jumping over a log and whipping through the forest. “Romanoff? You need to fly Banner out of here, _now_. Romanoff!”

 _“Crap. She's not responding,”_ Barton grated out, sounding breathless.

“Romanoff!” Loki growled.

Before he could call out again, a loud roar filled the forest. Loki stopped dead in his tracks, staring wide-eyed up into the dark canopy of trees. The second roar was longer, angrier and blood-curdling. It appeared rage had won out over reason. Loki grit his teeth and resumed running. When he reached his destination, Romanoff was on the ground, leaning by a tree, clutching at her thigh and out of breath. He followed her line of sight to see Banner's monster surrounded by three wolves. One of them ran at the hulking beast, but Banner's creature punched it straight in the nose with an enraged growl. Loki watched the wolf roll away, a second wolf leaping up, only to feel the force of Captain America's shield catch him in the ribs.

The creature soon saw it wasn't fighting just the green beast and split into more entities, not just wolves, but dark shadow warriors. They took on the shapes of their opponents, but were featureless, with half white and half blue faces. One ran towards Romanoff who fired off a succession of bullets in its direction, another one was blasted away by Iron Man. Loki ran through the fire fight, narrowly missing an arrow that caught a shadow advancing towards him. He darted through the middle of the chaos, whipping out strikes of sharp energy from his palms, striking down as many entities as he could. Coulson was up ahead, firing off shots, unaware of one of the serpent's shadow warrior's lunging forward with spear in hand. Loki held Gungnir tight and sent out one blast that blew away the entity, Coulson seeing it only as it dispersed. Coulson frowned at Loki, offering a single nod of surprised thanks.

Loki turned his attention further afield, blasting two more wolves into black smoke. Gungnir in one hand, he used his other to cast dozens of illusions of himself. He watched all the entities come to a standstill before morphing into the visage of the spectre and turning in unison towards each of Loki's illusions. Entities walked towards illusions, whilst Loki spotted one single figure standing still, its hungry gaze on the Hulk. Loki ran towards the spectre, Gungnir ready to cut off the head of the beast. The spear was lifted, poised to strike, the shadows around him preoccupied by illusions and Avengers. As the spear came down, the spectre turned, sensing the attack, turning its chest towards the oncoming spear.

Thunder rumbled above, before striking with fury. Lightning whip-cracked across the night sky and Gungnir became immoveable in Loki's hand, an invisible force tugging it backwards. Loki brought up his other hand to hold on, dragged along with the spear as he refused to let go. The spectre had risen off the ground, watching Loki with wide greedy eyes, as if seeing Gungnir for the first time, its eyes travelling up the spear and up to the sky. Loki watched the spectre reach out, its hand turning to mist, whilst Gungnir lifted Loki off the ground, slowly slipping from his grasp. Between one second and the next, Gungnir was gone, twirling upwards and away.

The spectre had completely dissolved into smoke, all its forms rejoining it as it turned into a whirlwind, with Loki at the center. _Where? Where? Where?_ It was inside Loki's mind, trying to pry it open. _How? Show us. How?_ Loki yelled out in protest and anger, magic crackling in the palms of his hands, a charge building. He needed just enough to disrupt the creature's hold on him.

 _Show us_ , the creature breathed into Loki's mind, ravenous. _Show us._

Loki's mind exploded with images, from memories to dreams, his minding becoming a tome of pages rapidly being flicked through, so fast that Loki could not stand it, his heart stuttering, his pulse racing and his whole body filling with heat.

 _Show me_ the serpent breathed into Loki's mind, sucking Loki into complete darkness.

 

 

# *

Loki sat up ramrod straight, eyes wide open, looking at a desolate dark landscape of dirt and rock under a dull black sky. A rustle of cloth made him turn to see in the distance a woman with voluptuous curves on a sturdy frame, her figure attired in black from head to toe, an animal fur around her shoulders and golden adornments on her wrists, around her neck, a golden belt around her waist and most importantly, a horned helmet on her head. Loki's horned helmet. Her green cape was billowing behind her as she stared somewhere past him.

He followed her gaze to see a small boy with a dark black mop of hair, dressed in the colours black, green and golden yellow. His eyes were the same as Loki's, and as the woman's. He sat oblivious on a rock, a small Midgardian contraption in his hands, his thumbs moving swiftly across the screen. Like the woman, Loki knew this boy was another him. Another image from the vision his mother had shared with him, an image that had flitted past so quickly it hadn't even registered at the time.

Just like the figure to his left, his own shape and form, only the skin was inky blue and the eyes were berry red. This Loki before wore a long white fur and had Jotun markings on his face. Was he a Jotun that never saw the splendour of Asgard? Did he grow to become a prince of his own realm? Had he fallen foul of a serpent? No answers forthcoming, Loki just stared, seeing a reality that could have so easily been. The figure pointed past Loki's shoulder.

Loki turned around to find his dreamscape transformed into the golden hall of an Asgardian palace, the lights dim, but still unable to distinguish the ethereal glow of the house of Odin. Up ahead was Thor seated upon the throne of the king. Or was it Thor? For his silver armour was instead bronze, and his bright red cape was pitch black. His golden mane was a deep rich brown and his dark eyelashes framed the blues of his eyes, making them look icy and cold. The corner of his mouth was lifted in a curiously cruel manner, and Loki found himself wondering how he had missed this in his mother's vision.

Thor was walking towards him with that self-assured gait familiar to Loki. He stopped in front of Loki, his eyes roaming up and down, head to foot. _Frost Giant_ , he seemed to mouth. Loki frowned, before realising Thor's eyes were aimed at the Jotun who had pointed in his direction. Loki turned back around to glance at the Frost Giant, seeing him bring up his hands and manifest the Casket of Ancient Winters. Loki stared at the casket in those blue hands, humming with a power that was pure Jotun.

“Loki.” Loki blinked, finding himself in front of Rogers whose usually kind and determined eyes seemed hard and cold. He wore a uniform where the blue had been replaced with black, the white with silver, his cowl replaced by a simple black mask that only covered his icy eyes. In a low angry voice, he said, “I don't believe in going down without a fight.”

Loki stared at Rogers, watching as his hand came to cup the back of Loki's neck. Before Loki could feel the touch of the black-gloved hand, everything around him shifted and Loki was watching from afar, seeing the black-clad Rogers facing another Loki, one whose mop of hair was the colour of sunlight, his armour silver and gold. It seemed to be a reality so far removed from him, he almost wished to see that cruel-mouthed Thor again. He watched the Asgardian Loki lean into the touch of the black-clad soldier Rogers, his hand coming up to grip the wrist close to his jaw, a needy and tight grip that made something stir nervously in Loki's stomach...

“Enough,” he whispered. When the vision didn't stop, he snapped, “Enough!”

And there it was, the golden city. Loki was standing on the rainbow bridge and looking into the distance at his home. Everything seemed perfect, from those mists hanging above in pink hues, to the warmth exuding from the colours of the bridge, the shine of the palaces.

“Asgard.” Loki whipped about, back into the dark, where the spectre stood before him, peering into his eyes. His smile was hideously wide as he repeated, “ _Asgard_.”

 

 

# *

Loki awoke with a start, his body jolting where it lay. He was staring up at the ceiling of the plane before it became obscured by Barton's face, impassive as ever. “You okay?”

Loki blinked slowly, the light of day sharply knifing straight into his head, his bones feeling rattled in their cage. He sat up slowly, one hand braced against the bench. “Ask me later.”

Barton stepped back, folding his arms across his chest as he watched Loki leaning back against the bulkhead. Something was clearly bouncing around his mind, though his expression remained blank. Looking away at whatever was past the hatch, Barton said, “So. You got into a slap fight with a cloud and lost. How crazy is that?”

“Excuse me while I sit here in amusement at the notion that the Avengers are the epitome of sanity,” Loki said.

Barton smirked at Loki. “Cap's pretty sane.”

“I beg to differ,” Loki said. “The good amongst us are usually the least sane.”

“And what are you?” Barton asked. “Good? Bad? Annoyingly morally ambiguous?”

Loki grinned, shrugging. “Depends on the time of day.”

Barton shook his head, making his way out of the plane, passing Romanoff and Rogers on their way in. Rogers had pulled his cowl back, revealing a bruise fading on the curve of his cheek, the rest of him looking slightly scuffed. Next to him, Romanoff's bottom lip had a painful looking swollen cut, and a black bandage seemed to have been hastily applied over her clothing, around her thigh.

“You okay? You were out for a pretty long time. Had us worried,” Rogers said, still looking worried.

Loki raised his brows at Romanoff. “Us?”

“He's being polite,” Romanoff said flatly, taking a seat opposite Loki, grimacing as she sat down.

Rogers took the seat next to Loki. Somewhat sternly, he asked, “What happened back there?”

Loki sighed. “The spear is no longer in my command.”

“You said only the King of Asgard gets to carry the spear,” Romanoff said. Loki nodded. “Is it just me or was that a pretty short reign?”

“Incredibly. The spear is with its new master now, with the serpent in tow.” Rogers and Romanoff shared a look. “What?”

“Fury asked us to come back to the compound. Another atmospheric disturbance over the site of the first spear,” Rogers answered.

“Gungnir returning to Asgard.” Loki swallowed, remembering the beast's last hiss of satisfaction. Gungnir was lost to him, returning to the hand of the king, whether it was Thor or Odin. Or another. And the beast was hungrily following, knowing that what Midgard offered could not even begin to compare with Asgard.

Rogers was looking at Loki, a pained expression on his face that needn't have been there. “Loki?”

“The beast has caught the scent of Asgard,” Loki said quietly. “This realm will be of little interest to it now.”

“We still need a way to stop it,” Rogers said.

Loki frowned at Rogers. “The beast has found much more bountiful feeding ground. Your realm may no longer be in danger.”

“We can't be sure of that,” Rogers said. “Besides, just because we might not be in danger, doesn't mean we let it loose on Asgard. Saving one world at the cost of another? That doesn't sit well with me.”

“Because you're an idealistic fool,” Loki said, the words coming out soft when they were intended to be scathing. Rogers just looked away, jaw clenched with hard to conceal frustration, while Loki stared.

“Isn't he just dreamy?” Romanoff said. Rogers gave her an unimpressed look, whilst Loki glared at the rather smug look on her face.

“Who? Cap?” Barton asked, stepping back into the cabin. She nodded, her eyes still on Loki. “Dreamy as hell.”

“Captain?” Coulson called from outside the plane. Rogers was was up and out immediately, Barton following as Romanoff stood up and gestured for Loki to join them. He followed them out into bright daylight, whilst Coulson continued. “They should be here any second.”

Rogers continued to confer with Coulson, whilst Romanoff and Barton fell into a quiet conversation of their own. Loki couldn't hear any of them, too busy taking in with what he was seeing. They were outside the SHIELD compound amidst a makeshift camp site crawling with agents. The reason they were outside and not in was because at the centre of the compound was a swirling black tornado twisting up into the sky, debris from smashed parts of the compound swirling around with it. It was the beast, spinning in formless fury.

“Yeah. So that happened,” Barton said, clapping a hand on Loki's shoulder. Loki turned to stare at him. He shrugged. “What? How exactly was I supposed to break it to you that your snake baby's throwing a tantrum?”

“Not like that,” Rogers said, joining Barton and Loki. “Right after the spear disappeared, the snake camped out on the spot of the first spear.”

“It's trying to re-open the window through which Gungnir left,” Loki said, slightly alarmed by how close the beast was to actually finding Asgard.

“That's what Doctor Foster said,” Barton told them. Loki stared at him, that name lighting a shameful spark of anger. “You're glaring again.”

“You're all here. Good,” Fury called out. They turned in unison to see Fury walking up the path between the pitched tents. Behind him was Jane and her two friends. Fury was looking at Coulson, who snapped his phone shut and straightened up. “Stark?”

“He's on his way, sir,” Coulson said. “And he has Doctor Banner.”

Loki looked at Barton who explained, “We lost Banner after he hulked out.”

“And we had orders to get back here asap, so we all agreed Stark should be the one looking for the... _big green rage monster_ ,” Rogers said, looking unimpressed by his own choice of words.

Loki turned his attention to Jane who was pushing back a stray strand of hair from her face and looking at Rogers as if he was somehow unreal, which, Loki thought, he was somewhat.

“I see you did not take my advice,” Loki told Jane, waiting for her to realise he was talking to her. She blinked up at him and opened her mouth to speak. Loki spoke over her, “No matter. Director Fury appears to have found a use for you.”

That seemed to make her bristle, the soft expression on her face hardening all at once, as if she suddenly had the measure of Loki, which she undoubtedly did not. She nodded and said, “Agent Coulson thought we might be able to help.”

“Oh?” Loki said with a smile. “Wonderful. Looks like we're all saved then.”

Jane scowled, shaking her head. “That thing is throwing a party in your playground and and even though your friends managed to _magically_ lose my research, I am here. _Helping_. You're welcome.”

Loki gave her a tight smile. “Whatever the fates decree.”

Jane gave him a look of confusion, while her black-haired friend quietly muttered something about Loki's sanity. Selvig gave her reproachful, “Darcy.”

Jane looked away, shaking her head. She turned to Fury. “Like I said, it's building up a charge to do something spectacular, I'm talking about a big bang that could leave behind a hole the size of, well, New Mexico. It's time to evacuate.”

Romanoff frowned at Fury, who said, “Doctor Foster's been looking at Banner's research. She's rigged up a temporary scanner to pick up exactly what the snake's doing over there, other than tearing up the place.”

“Are you listening to me?” Jane asked Fury. “People are going to die when your smoke monster goes off like a bomb.”

“I do not need you to tell me what I already know, Doctor,” Fury said. “I need solutions.”

“Indeed,” Loki said. “We already know it's trying to re-open the portal to Asgard, to follow Gungnir. What we need is a way to stop it.”

“Guggenheim?” Darcy asked, face scrunched in confusion.

“Asgard?” Selvig asked. “As in... the mythological realm of the Norse gods, Asgard?”

Fury sighed and narrowed his single eye at Selvig. “Know a lot of other Asgards?”

Selvig opened his mouth to reply, but a black-clad agent rushed over, handing fury a computer tablet. Looking annoyed, Fury shared a knowing look with Coulson and both men followed the woman, Jane going after Fury with a barrage of questions, her friends going after her, missing Stark who flew down out of the sky at that moment, Banner clinging to his frame in clearly borrowed clothing. As they touched down, Banner stumbled away, looking breathless and unsteady. He turned around and eyed the compound, or more precisely, the serpent's twisting tornado.

Looking back at the group, he wearily commented, “Well, this all looks horrible.”

Stark retracted his faceplate, clapping a hand on Banner's shoulder, which Banner immediately, if gently, removed. Stark nodded to Rogers. “Snake still sucking the place dry?”

“It's trying to re-open the portal,” Rogers replied. “And apparently when it does, it might take this whole place with it.”

Stark was looking at Banner. “It's an unstable energy-guzzling machine. How do we make that work for us?”

Banner shook his head, answering. “We try destabilising it?”

Stark was nodding. “I hear you. Complete demolecularisation. I mean, that should slow down anything, right?”

“Destablise does not mean demolecularise,” Banner said calmly, his forehead crinkling with worry.

“It can if we can make one lead to the other,” Stark said, sliding his right hand from left to right.

Rogers was frowning, slowly nodding. “You might be on to something.”

“Of course, I'm on to something, I'm a genius,” Stark said. Rogers gave him an impatient look, mouth clamped shut. Stark held up his hands. “You were explaining how I've solved all our problems.”

Rogers looked from Stark to Banner as he explained, “The snake destablises if it consumes too much. So it has to get rid of enough energy to stabilise itself. Right? So what if it can't? What if it feeds and doesn't have a chance to dump the excess?”

“We can blow it up,” Romanoff said. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged and added, “Destablise and demolecularise.”

“That's your answer to everything,” Barton told her with a smirk, receiving one in return.

Loki looked in the direction of the beast, the way it was desperately spinning around and around on itself, driven by pure hunger. What a shame it would be to destroy something so simple, so pure in its needs. Quietly, he said, “You're right. We need to feed it. And make sure it has no choice but to keep feeding.”

“How are we going to direct that kind of energy at it?” Banner asked. “We're not talking about a power line here. We're talking-”

“Don't say nuclear,” Stark said. “Nobody say nuclear.”

Loki smiled, his fingers flexing by his sides. He turned to look at everyone. “I may have something.”

Stark scowled. “We're hearing about this now because?”

Loki raised his brows at Stark. “Because an endless supply of energy does not come to mind when considering how to defeat a creature with an endless supply of hunger.”

Stark blinked and then looked at Rogers whose eyes seemed to light up with renewed fire. He nodded to Loki. “Keep talking.”

 

 

# *

When Loki was a boy, Odin often took him and Thor to the vault, where the most precious of Asgardian weapons were kept. It was here he saw Mjölnir for the first time. Looking back, it seemed to make sense now how it had always been Thor's weapon. Not once had Odin suggested that anyone other than Thor would wield that mighty hammer. As for Gungnir, well, that could go to either of Odin's sons, depending on who became king. Though over time it was clear for whom that weapon was also meant.

That left one strange item in the vault, one that was guarded more closely than either Mjölnir or Gungnir. Like the other two weapons, it could only be taken out of the vault by the king, a destroyer standing guard out of sight, prepared to attack should anyone else approach. It was the weapon that Odin sometimes glanced back at when leaving the vault, as if it might follow him out. It was the weapon at which Odin looked, and then would follow by looking at Loki, as if expecting to find something new on his son's face.

It was the Casket of Ancient Winters.

“You said only the king can take the casket,” Rogers said, marching next to Loki as they walked into the chaotic compound.

“Yes, and I happened to take it from the vault while I happened to be king,” Loki said. “However, there is no magic that binds the casket to the King of Asgard, as the weapon is Jotun.”

“Jotun,” Barton said from behind. “That's you.”

Loki arched a brow. “Some of the time.”

“Sounds familiar,” Banner said from next to Barton.

“So you can still use it,” Romanoff said, marching on Loki's other side.

“Indeed,” Loki nodded. “In fact, anyone with some magical know-how can use it. It's how to use it well that counts.”

 _“Why the hell did you even bring it with you?”_ Stark spoke in all their earpieces, hovering high above.

Loki frowned. He had returned to Asgard, his pact with Kyr still tingling across his mouth, and Thor's nightmare visions circling his mind. Standing in the vault he had eyed all the splendour allowed a victor. As he picked out the sharpest knives and gave the vault one last glance, his eyes had fallen on the casket as it sat upon its pedestal. It seemed like a living breathing thing that sat shunned and apart from everything else in the room, as if this was its punishment, to have its beauty hidden, its power bound. Loki had walked towards it without thinking before slowly picking it up and holding it in his hands, which turned joyously dark and blue. The destroyer remained hidden, knowing the casket was in the hands of a king. Loki had looked up at the wall behind which the destroyer stood dormant and then with a smile, he had veiled the casket out of sight and taken it with him.

“Ten bucks says it's because he thought it was pretty,” Barton commented.

“Then I am in debt to you of ten bucks,” Loki said. “Should we survive today, I will gladly take you hunting in the forests of Asgard.”

“Very funny,” Barton said flatly. “Don't give up your day job.”

Loki stopped walking, putting his arm out in front of Rogers. “I believe this is where you stop, and I go on alone.”

“You shouldn't have to,” Rogers told him, looking at the beast, frustration clear on his face. “Maybe there's a way-”

“There isn't,” Loki said. “Besides, if this all goes terribly wrong, I may need someone to avenge my premature demise. Not to mention, Barton will need those strong arms of yours to comfort him.”

Rogers didn't smile, didn't even pretend to find humour in the situation. He looked away for a moment, as if catching his words out of the air, before telling Loki. “When this is done, you and I are going to talk about magic and mirrors.”

Loki rolled his eyes, prompting Rogers to smile. Turning to Romanoff, he gave her a sharp nod. “Agent.”

She nodded back, responding, “Trickster.”

Smiling, Loki offered Barton a nod, receiving one in return, accompanied by a rather serious and grim look. Loki nodded at Banner whose green beast was watching Loki with a scowl that matched the one on his human.

Loki turned back around to Rogers. “Captain.”

Rogers reached out, clasping Loki's shoulder tight, looking him dead in the eyes. “Go get that bastard. We're right behind you.”

Loki smiled, reaching up and clasping the Captain's wrist, giving it a tight squeeze before he looked up at the Iron Man and said, “Watch over them, Stark.”

 _“Copy that,”_ Stark replied. _“You bring the snake down? Drinks are on me.”_

Loki grinned at Rogers, shrugging. “I can hardly pass that up.”

With that, he pulled away quick and turned his back on them all. Loki walked on towards the twisting tornado, through a scene of destruction and chaos, until he reached a wall of black mist and was close enough to see the debris rushing around within the beast's form, parts of the compound along with dirt and twisted metal trapped in the serpent's storm. The sound was of whistling speeding winds and Loki's hair was blowing about his face, his coat being whipped back from his body.

“I want to talk!” Loki shouted. The tornado continued its efforts to pry open the sky. Loki shouted louder. “Jörmungandr!”

The tornado continued, but from within it walked out the visage of the spectre, pale as paper and eye sockets so dark, they might as well have been holes. The serpent's illusion seemed like a burnt out picture of something from a nightmare. Jörmungandr tilted its head at Loki in a hard and stiff movement. When Loki didn't speak, it tilted its head harder and sharper in the other direction, its mouth curling up in distaste.

“Are you here to kill us, Father?” it asked.

Loki shook his head. “No.”

“You lie,” Jörmungandr replied, its mouth twisting into something like a smile, but not managing it.

“I come to plead,” Loki said, his hands out by his sides where the serpent could see them, empty and in surrender.

Jörmungandr's head jerked slightly, brow crinkling into a frown. “Plead?”

“Yes,” Loki said with a nod. Jörmungandr seemed confused, unable to stop frowning, its head moving, its body eerily still. Loki looked at the tornado behind Jörmungandr and wondered how much of the serpent he was talking to.

“Plead,” Jörmungandr commanded.

“I need you to listen to me,” Loki said. “Properly. Won't you give your father even one moment of your time?”

Jörmungandr went absolutely still, as if it was Stark's suit empty of its pilot. After a moment, the mist of the tornado came down like a falling canopy, covering the figure of the spectre, and everything that had been caught up within it. When the mist folded back, slurping inward all the way into itself, there stood a figure identical to Loki, except for half of its face shimmering blue. Jörmungandr's mouth stretched into a smile that only went up half its face as it watched Loki with sharp green eyes.

“Speak,” Jörmungandr said.

“Spare Midgard and Asgard,” Loki said.

Jörmungandr frowned. “From what?”

“From you,” Loki said.

Jörmungandr looked confused. “We mean only to feed. To live. To grow.”

“Your feeding means the end of worlds,” Loki said. “Of this world. Of Asgard. Of everything in your path.”

Jörmungandr shook his head. “The hunger will stop when we feed.”

“No, Jörmungandr,” Loki told the creature, more softly than he intended.

Jörmungandr blinked at Loki, smiling. “No. It will stop. We will go to Asgard. Then it will stop.”

“Tearing apart realms will not stop your hunger,” Loki said.

Jörmungandr's face seem to crumple in on itself in a terrible grimace, its fists clenched by its side. Its voice was mangled with frustration and pain when it shouted, “Why did you make us this way? Why must we be like this?”

“I didn't mean for it to happen.” Loki felt his eyes burn and his voice stick when he answered, “Forgive me.”

“No.” Jörmungandr pointed at Loki, its mouth down-turned in misery. “No. _You_. Stop this. You stop this, Father.”

“It's why I came here,” Loki said. “I can stop your hunger, but you most promise to give up Asgard and this realm.”

“How will you stop the hunger?” Jörmungandr asked, shaking its head in refusal. “It cannot be cured, nor curbed. You said this.”

“I didn't have the cure then. Like I do now.” Loki held up his hands for Jörmungandr to see, empty. “May I?”

Jörmungandr frowned at Loki's hands, blinking furiously. Loki swept one hand over the other and unveiled the casket, holding it out in front of him. Jörmungandr stared at it and then at Loki in question.

“Sustenance,” Loki said. “Endless sustenance. You can feed until the end of eternity and this casket will not run dry. I can show you.”

Jörmungandr scowled, shaking its head, its eyes unable to move from the casket. Without warning, Loki sent out a blast at Jörmungandr and then almost immediately stopped, watching Jörmungandr stagger back in shock, before shaking its head and straightening up, breathing hard, eyes wide. It peered at Loki, mouth slightly open, dark shadows dancing around its feet.

“See?” Loki asked. “That was just a mere morsel. Have another.”

Loki let out a longer blast and watched as Jörmungandr opened out its arms and absorbed the hit of ice white energy, where another would have frozen solid. There was Jotun blood in the beast for sure. But how much, was the question? Loki brought down the casket, watching Jörmungandr rooted to the spot, arms hanging by its side as it just breathed in and out, tendrils of dark curling around it in pleasure.

“This is yours,” Loki said. “All of it. If you promise me Asgard and Midgard.”

Jörmungandr blinked slowly, eyes on the casket, more dark shadows skittering towards it. “Ours.”

“One more taste,” Loki said. “Then you can decide.”

Loki fired the casket, sending out a lengthy blast. This time he saw shadows sliding from places where there should have been no shadows, all the way back to Jörmungandr, crawling out of their hiding places. Jörmungandr had the taste of the casket, and all its hidden parts were hungry for a taste. Loki cut off the stream, leaving Jörmungandr staring at the casket with open need and hunger.

“More,” it breathed. “More.”

Shadows rushed past Loki and were absorbed by Jörmungandr. Loki nodded. “Like I said. It's all yours.”

Loki fired the casket and Jörmungandr drank it all in with open arms. It was feeding with gluttony, shadows swirling in from all over and back into the creature now that it knew what was in Loki's hands was not a weapon. How long would it take for the creature to gorge? How long before it would realise the casket was a weapon after all? For now it was content to keep guzzling and growing. It shifted from the illusion of Loki to a large wolf. For the longest time the wolf howled in the face of the casket's expulsion. After a moment the wolf morphed into a serpent which was swaying in the shower of the casket, growing and growing and growing until-

_Enough._

Loki let out a shuddering breath, hearing Jörmungandr hissing inside his mind.

_Enough. Stop._

Loki took a deep shuddering breath and released a catch that opened up the entire front of the casket, energy flowing from within as if someone had opened the floodgates on a river of lightning. The sky above darkened and the air became chilly. The force of the expulsion from the casket pushed back against Loki. Untempered, the casket was firing with full force.

_Father._

“Forgive me,” Loki whispered.

Jörmungandr twisted and turned, shadows escaping its form only to be dragged back to the creature, which shuddered and split under the onslaught of the casket. It screeched and howled, both outside and inside Loki's mind. The creature, pinned by the casket, was sending back a stream of heat in Loki's direction, the power of the casket beginning to overwhelm it as it desperately tried to shed energy. Loki felt his skin prickle and burn, his muscles shuddering as he tried to hold steady. When Loki thought he couldn't hold on much longer, it happened; the creature could grow no more and its shell began to harden. It had begun to turn into ice.

It struggled still, the ice cracking wherever it hardened. It was shuddering and shaking within its icy shell. With a screech of rage the serpent split into two, halving in size, still twice as large as two Jotuns. Both serpents were made of ice. One turned into a snow white wolf, whilst the other remained attached to the casket's outpouring. Loki had found the true head of the beast and he remained turned towards it, even if the wolf was running in his direction with its icy jaws open. It leapt into the air only to be tackled by a green beast that grappled it around its middle and rolled away with it. The Hulk and the beast parted, facing each other. The wolf lunged and the Hulk met it with a meaty fist to the snout, shattering the wolf into pieces, turning it into a snow white mist.

In a final struggle for freedom, Jörmungandr shuddered and split again, and again, and again, shrinking down to the shape of an icy spectre, the rest of it turning into ice creatures with Gungnir-like staff weapons. Loki laughed through tears at the creature's resourcefulness, whilst shaking at the heated pain now racking his limbs. The ice warriors were coming for Loki, but he stood his ground as the Hulk smashed his way through as many as he could, Stark firing down from the sky, Barton and Romanoff fighting on the ground. Still, one ice warrior was headed straight for Loki, its staff turning into an ice blade. As it neared, a shield elegantly spun through the air, straight through the middle of Loki's would-be assailant, shattering it to pieces before bouncing off of an overturned car and straight back into the hand of Captain America.

Above them, the sky begun to rumble, thunder crackling between the clouds, but no rain fell, flurries of snow appearing instead. Loki took a shaky step forward, the Avengers all around him, taking down every new ice warrior. The snow was falling storm heavy, turning the ground white, aided by the death of ice creatures and the outpouring of the casket. Jörmungandr finally seemed unable to create another soldier to fight its cause. The serpent was now stuck in the form of the spectre, turning white, turning hard, turning to ice with every agonising step Loki took towards it. Finally, it exploded upwards like a white-hot shooting star, streaking across the heavens and disappearing completely.

The casket closed and slipped from Loki's withered hands, falling on the ground. Loki stared at it, taking barely one step before he too fell, teetering on his knees, until suddenly Rogers was there, easing him back and holding him too gently for a man with so much strength in his body. The snow was still falling, but it provided Loki no relief; the serpent had lit a pyre inside Loki, and he was beginning to burn on the inside. Loki blinked up at Rogers who looked devastated, his eyes sharp and bright. Loki wondered why until he caught sight again of the skin on his hands, which wasn't blue, but a charred black, raw red in places. His body convulsed when he tried to speak, and Rogers almost flinched.

Loki pointed at the fallen casket the best he could. He managed to blurt, “Hide... it.”

Stark landed close by and Rogers was nodding at him, gesturing towards the casket. Stark picked it up, his unreadable metal face looking in Loki's direction for the longest time. Loki was glad he couldn't see Stark's face, especially since Rogers' gaze was somewhere past Loki, something like guilt or shame tarnishing his features. When he looked back, his mouth was down-turned and unhappy.

“Cap?” Barton said quietly, prompting Rogers to turn to him, Barton directing him to look up at the sky.

The clouds had begun to spin and gurgle. Rogers blinked at Loki in confusion. Loki just stared up at the sky, feeling a sense of relief. The serpent's venom had burned away all the veils. Someone would be coming for him. Rogers was quietly talking to Loki, his tone comforting, but Loki's mind was wandering, his senses hooked on pain. Thunder cracked hard over their heads, like the furies themselves were coming to get Loki. Loki grimaced and let his eyes drift shut, the brightest red filling his vision for a moment, before everything turned pitch black.


	18. Chapter 18

As Loki had lay dying, a few things passed through his mind. Flashes of 'what if' as well as flashes of what had been. Death would come to all things, that much was certain, but he wondered how this death was different to his many deaths, the deaths of all those shadows behind the veil. The woman with the horned helmet, how did she meet her end? What happened to that young Loki, so engrossed in his Midgardian gadget? What happened to the Jotun? And what of that Loki whose fingers curled painfully as they reached out to the black-clad Rogers? What was his death like? And what was the cause of sorrow in his eyes?

Did they all burn to crisp? Was it worth it? _Should have just let the serpent rip apart the cosmos_. Mad thoughts circled his brain, maybe some of them made it to his dry cracked lips and to the ears of those who stood around him. I won't need a pyre, he had laughed, heated tears streaming down his burning face. He thought he heard his mother's stifled sob, a pained plea to stop talking from Odin in the single quiet utterance, " _Loki_."

When madness couldn't temper the pain, Loki sobbed, asking for someone to end it. In that moment, he stilled, seeing nothing past his blurred vision, realising this was the fate he had stolen from Thor. This slow burning death, where he felt as if his lungs were drowning in venom, and even the air's touch on his skin gave rise to agony. This was what the fates had chosen for Thor, and Loki, the trickster, had stolen it away and made it his own.

If he could have, he would have laughed. But he drifted onwards in his pain filled haze, the voices coming and going. Sometimes it was Odin, hovering close by, calling his name softly, sometimes it was his mother, the sound of her breathing wet and distraught. When it was Thor, it was just miserable silence. Even Sif managed more words than Thor, as she sat by his side comforting Thor no doubt. One day, it was the low rumble of Laufey's voice, following a quiet intake of breath which made Loki glad he couldn't see himself.

"You are Jotunblood," Laufey murmured after some time, his breath cold on Loki's face. "Heal."

A heavy hand settled against his charred chest and Loki gasped loudly, his eyes opening wide. He blinked, taking a deep breath to calm his heart. Looking around, he found himself still at the scene of the serpent's death, snow flurries disguising the chaotic remains of the compound. Someone was standing behind Loki, clapping slowly. He turned around to find Thor, dressed as if he was even now headed to his coronation, his helmet decorating his head, his armour heavy and embellished. He was smiling at Loki, taking a slow walk around him.

Loki watched him with interest, saying nothing. Thor had a smirk on his face, one that did not suit him at all, just like the sharp cunning look in his eyes. “An Asgardian Jotun hero. I am impressed.”

“Are you?” Loki asked, arching a brow. “And who might you be?”

Thor shrugged. “You are riddled with dark magic. I could be anything. Something planted by the Dwarves you intend to cheat. Something from our mother's vision. Something from the casket in which I was imprisoned. Something... of the serpent, which burns you even as we speak.”

Loki felt heat flare all the way up his arms, exploding in his chest. He thought he saw the twisting beast dart towards him. Loki jolted, trying to get away from his own body. _You can heal from this_ , a voice murmured in his ear, pulling him free of the nightmare. Loki came to his senses to find himself on his knees, his stamina ebbing away, heart filled with fear of the fire that seemed barely held at bay, always close to burning him to cinders.

Thor crouched before him, smiling happily, his body loose and comfortable. “Who do you think you are, unpicking the threads sewn by fate, hmm? You are a cog. Just a cog. A _throwaway_ , Jotun, cog.”

Loki fell to the ground, screaming in pain. The burning was bone deep. Or maybe his bones had turned to lava, maybe his muscles were melting under his skin. The cold was fading, it wasn't enough. He choked, “ _Stop_ this.”

“You think you saved us all,” Thor said, whispering in Loki's ear. “But how can that be possible? You cannot even save yourself.”

He was burning all over again, shaking and clawing at the mud, trying to climb into the ground, no longer able to scream, his voice no longer working as fire ripped through his veins and his vision became blood and then black. Finally, he lay still and hollow, pain replaced by numbness.

_Fight it._

What if he didn't fight? Would it end like this? Or would he just keep burning? I'm scared, he wanted to say, but the words were no longer his to control. All he could do was embrace the fear and watch as the black inside his eyes slowly turned to white. Was it the white of passing? It wasn't the white of a mourneful sky. No, he remembered, it was the white of a bed sheet turned into a canopy in a childish fort. Loki was looking at a young boy with yellow hair and belligerent blue eyes who told him, “Don't worry. I will not let them take you, Brother. I promise.”

The canopy fell over Loki like a sheet of ice, sinking through his skin, and something bright and cold spread through his veins, the fire in his blood turning to ice. He lay trembling for a while, learning to breathe again before he slowly pulled himself up to his feet. Thor was silently watching him, Mjölnir in hand, his red cape billowing behind him and a look of determination that hadn't changed much since they were children. All embellishments were gone, leaving behind just Thor as Loki knew him best.

He slowly came to Loki, reaching out and gently pressing his hand to Loki's chest. Loki looked down and watched it curl, large, blue and knotted. When it began to pull away, Loki grabbed it by the wrist, keeping it close, his arm shaking from the effort. He cracked his eyes open ever so slightly and peered at Laufey, feeling a cold balm spreading through his Jotun blood.

 

 

# *

The first time Loki awoke properly, unhampered by the mist of the healing chamber, it was instant. His eyes flicked open and he saw the ceiling of his own bedchamber. For a moment, he wondered if he had dreamt of another Loki burning to death slowly after slaying a world-eating snake. He felt no evidence of having been scorched as he held up his hand to look at the smooth pale skin. But was there the barest tint of blue, or was he mistaken?

Loki slowly sat up, his body trembling slightly from the effort, and turned his head to find Thor to the right, seated by his bed in a low chair, a warm brown cloak draped around his shoulders and across his chest, his hair tied back. His expression was fixed, mouth shut and unmoving, the colour of his eyes dulled by weariness. Loki found his own mouth shut, unsure of what to say. Thor had that same haunted look on his face, the one he had on emerging from the casket on Jotunheim. This was not the same Thor Loki had run away from, as much as he himself was not the same Loki who had left Asgard so many days ago.

“Loki!” Frigga rushed into the room, straight to Loki's side, pulling him into an embrace and kissing his cheek. “You're awake.”

He held onto her arm, but his eyes were on Thor, watching him as he got up and silently walked out, Loki staring at him as he left. It was Frigga who called out after him. “Thor?”

She started to rise to go after him, but Loki held onto her hand. His voice was rusty when he spoke. “Let him be.”

Frigga slowly sat back down, her expression troubled. After a moment of quiet, Frigga said, “He's barely left your side since he brought you back from Midgard.”

“Well, I'm awake now,” Loki said. “He no longer needs to remain at my side.”

Frigga looked at the chair where Thor had been sitting, her eyes watery. “You don't know what it did to him. Seeing you in so much agony. What it did to all of us.”

“Better me than him,” Loki said, his voice hushed. Frigga stared at Loki. “An Asgardian was fated to die by the serpent. For a Jotun, merely a brush with death. So... better me than him.”

Frigga stared at him for a moment before pulling Loki close and holding him tighter than he could ever remember, shaking against him. He held her and wondered how many more secrets she kept hidden away, what made her hold him so tight. Pulling away slowly, she smiled at Loki, before wiping away the evidence of her tears

“You need to rest,” she said. “And then, to eat. Tell me, what do you feel like?”

The bitter taste of coffee and the doughy chewy taste of a bagel, Loki thought, Midgard on his mind. He shook his head and smiled, “Anything.”

Frigga gave him a nod. “You rest. I'll be back soon.”

Frigga left, smiling but still looking burdened. Loki waited for the doors to shut in the outer chambers before throwing back the sheets and getting up. There was a moment of wavering on weak legs, but it passed and he padded naked into the large closet holding his attire. He was swift, taking only a green tunic and black breeches, slipping on a pair of boots without bothering with the clasps, draping a large black cloak around himself. He went to stand out on the balcony, looking at the rest of the city and the bridge in the distance. Everything was picture perfect, untouched by the hunger of Jörmungandr.

He thought of the serpent, the moment it had left, having released its poison into Loki. It was too easy to recall the feeling of fire in his body, the memory of glimpsing his own charred skin, the way he had burned from the inside out. He remembered vividly how it had gotten worse before it got better. Loki squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing hard. It took a few deep breaths for his heart to start beating right again.

“Dark magic. It leaves a mark,” Odin said from inside Loki's bedchamber. Loki turned to see his father walk out onto the balcony. “It becomes a part of you, takes refuge inside you. It may never control you, but it will return to you in dreams and visions. Which is why it is better left alone.”

Loki grinned. “Has that warning ever worked on anyone?”

“No.” Odin might have sighed and deflated slightly, but it was hard to tell behind that white beard of his. “And you? You are covered in the marks of dark magic, the most prominent of which is that of the Svartálfar. Tell me, how do you plan to fulfil this pact you have made?”

“I intend to stand by it,” Loki answered. “When I am king, that is.”

Odin frowned. “And what if you are never king?”

Loki smiled. “That _does_ pose a problem. After all, it was a pact made by a king, to be fulfilled by a king.”

“You must have been quite certain of your future to have made such a gamble.” Odin was staring at Loki with something that might have been surprise. Loki shrugged; his father was smart enough to consider certainties and futures. “How long were you planning to leave Thor bound to Jotunheim at the mercy of the Frost Giants?”

“As long as it would have taken Heimdall to realise I would not be returning. The gatekeeper is wise, so, not long.” Loki said. “Besides, Thor was never in danger.”

“How can you be so certain of this?” Odin asked.

Loki thought about his visit to Jotunheim. “Laufey is so desperate to be a father to me... I think I could have asked his word on anything.”

Odin was completely silent. Loki said no more, no matter how long the silence stretched on, too curious about Odin's thoughts. When he could speak again, Odin said, “And you asked him to keep Thor out of harm's way.”

Loki pulled a face. “I asked him to keep Thor out of _my_ way so I could remain king.”

“Is there anyone you did not lie to?” Odin asked crossly.

“You?” Loki answered with a smile. “By the by, the Svartálfar have been trying to orchestrate a war between Asgard and Jotunheim, but I trust Thor and his friends have filled you in.”

Odin nodded, still looking cross. “Alflyse denies all wrong doing. She accuses you of betraying Thor and stealing the throne.”

“I take it Thor has told you it was her top most smith who imprisoned him. The same smith with whom I made my pact.” Loki waved towards his face, trying not to smirk at his father.

“Brokkyr,” Odin said, sounding quite stern and irritated. “Alflyse has cast the accusation that he was colluding with you and has now disappeared from Svartálheim. She accuses you of aiding his escape.”

“By which she means he's rotting somewhere in her dungeons,” Loki said.

Odin didn't appear too bothered. “He committed treason when he helped you. It is the price he must pay.”

“To save your son,” Loki said thoughtfully. “It was he who released Thor to me.”

“After imprisoning him,” Odin said, his voice as cool as his gaze. “Alflyse will not confess to her part. You have been too convincing in your deception, Loki. There are many who have remarked how easily you might once again lie your way to the throne.”

Loki bristled at that, knowing exactly who will have remarked on these future possibilities, those same Asgardians that had watched him grow from a child to a man, whispering into his father's ears to be wary of the spy in the house of Odin.

“I lied because it was the only way to hold on to Gungnir and keep Thor away from Midgard. Had Gungnir stayed in my grasp a moment longer, the beast would have fallen much sooner too.”

“You cannot be certain of that,” Odin said. Loki snorted, shaking his head and opening his mouth dispute Odin's fanciful musing, but his father was watching him with a strange calm look that stopped Loki in his tracks. “You managed to destroy the beast without the spear, did you not?”

“Serendipity.” Loki looked away, watching the stars. “You chose a most inopportune moment to wake.”

“Gungnir,” Odin said quietly, “is loyal only to Asgard. I saw visions of a beast ready to ravage this realm because its most loyal subject demanded to wield a different king.”

Loki looked at the spear in Odin's hand. “Well, it appears there was one I wasn't able to deceive after all.”

“Deception and lies are no way to rule a kingdom, Loki,” Odin told him.

Loki arched a brow at his father. “I uncovered a conspiracy. Ensured our treaty with the Jotuns stands. Liberated Thor from his jailers _and_ stopped him from following me to Midgard and to the mouth of the serpent.” He gave Odin a nod and added, “You are most welcome.”

Odin snorted, an amused smile playing on his lips. Loki looked away from Odin to the vista before them. The sky seemed somehow lazy, purple mists swirling without purpose. “You would have done the same. You would have done everything in your power to protect him.”

Odin looked across at Loki, but said nothing, just silently watching him.

“You just never expected me to do it.” Loki's said as he looked back at Odin. “But I did it, Father. I did it for all of us.”

Odin was staring at Loki, his one eye looking glassy. Stiffly, he turned his gaze back to the sky. “Your mother was wrong to make you a party to the things she has seen. No one should know what the fates may or may not have written for them. It is a heavy burden to have to carry.”

“The fates,” Loki said murmured thoughtfully, “would have us believe we are born gods and monsters. I say let us take the paths of our own choosing.”

Odin seemed to sink into thought, leaving Loki watching him during the lengthy silence. When he spoke, he said, “I hope you will choose your path wisely then.”

Loki looked away, smiling. “But you fear I will not.”

“Those are your words, Loki, not mine. If you see slights where there are none, you will falter from any and all paths you choose.” Odin gave Loki a stern look, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder. “Now, when your strength is fully returned, there is much we must talk about. Foremost, what it is you intend to do with the casket.”

“Keep it,” Loki said matter-of-factly, jutting out his chin defiantly.

Odin was nodding, as if not surprised at all. “Why?”

Loki thought about it. Mjölnir was never his to hold, and Gungnir, well, Gungnir was loyal to Asgard, wielder of kings, and Loki was no weapon for wielding. “Because of all the weapons I have held, this one knew me best. Besides, don't you think your Jotun weapon should sit in the hands of a Jotun?”

Odin was unreadable. After a moment, he said, “You are your mother's son, through and through.”

Loki smiled, his mouth not quite holding it. “So I've been told.”

If Odin understood Loki's thoughts, he didn't let it show, giving Loki a nod and turning to leave, his parting words: “We will talk when you are fully rested.”

Loki returned to the stone wall of the balcony, leaning on it and watching the mists above Asgard, fully expecting to see a blue Midgardian sky, disappointed when he didn't. In the distance, the bridge was a tempting sight. It didn't take long for him to slip the guards and ride out to the dome. He could see Heimdall in the distance, an immoveable golden figure. Even when Loki reached his destination, Heimdall continued to stand his ground, his eyes alone registering acknowledgement of Loki's arrival.

Loki smiled in Heimdall's direction, dismounting and striding over to the silent figure. “Gatekeeper.”

“Prince Loki,” Heimdall said, his words hanging as if he meant to say more. Their absence left the air feeling heavy.

“You're not going to suffer my trickery in silence are you? It's unlike you, Heimdall.”

Heimdall's amber eyes flicked up and down Loki's body and Loki knew the gatekeeper was seeing whatever broken creature it was that had been brought back from Midgard. Loki's confident smile wavered, his body too easily remembering the pain it had suffered.

“Never,” Heimdall said after a long pause, his voice so low it might have been coming from Jotunheim, “have I witnessed such trickery and deception.”

Loki gave a small bow of the head. “Thank you, you're very kind.”

Heimdall scowled so hard it was a wonder his helmet didn't split in two. “I am not expressing admiration.”

“I'm flattered all the same,” Loki said, grinning ear to ear. “Tell me, how long did you wait before someone was sent to Jotunheim? From your irritability I will deduce, longer than you ought to have. Thor's friends must have been furious when you found them.”

Heimdall gave Loki a humourless look. “Would you rather not know how your mother felt?”

Loki felt his mood sour instantly. He tried to keep the shift from his demeanour, but his smile tightened all the same. “I'm sure she'll tell me later.”

“She will not,” Heimdall said, his bright eyes darkening. “She will not tell you because she saw you return a husk of your former self, a corpse. She will not tell you how she went to Jotunheim and quarrelled with Laufey to take her to you, finding instead her other son, knowing he would want to come after you. She will not tell you how she fought with Odin to open the bridge, when he was duty-bound to save this realm from the beast at its door. She will tell you none of these things.”

Loki listened quietly until Heimdall finished. In answer, he mustered a shaky smile and shrugged. “Circumstances dictate that we all do what we must.”

Heimdall shook his head. “You sons of Odin, and your father.”

“To whom you are so loyal,” Loki reminded Heimdall. “I doubt you are so sympathetic to the queen that you dared open the bridge before Odin allowed it. When was it? When you saw the serpent perish, or when you saw me take my last breath?”

Heimdall gave Loki a long look, his voice sounding strange and hollow. “When you lost that last ounce of strength to hide from my gaze.”

Loki blinked at Heimdall, silenced for a moment. Then he smiled and said, “Impressive, no?”

Heimdall smiled ever so slightly, shaking his head. “No.”

Loki looked away, still smiling. He pondered, “Mother and Father have not even once uttered the name Midgard.”

“It is not the most favoured realm of the Asgardians at this time,” Heimdall said.

“Ah,” Loki said with an amused smile. “And here I was thinking my Midgardian friends might attend the next feast.”

“Odin would sooner dine with live pigs at the table,” Heimdall commented dryly.

Loki smiled and looked ahead at the dome, Heimdall watching him navigate an inner maze of thoughts before he finally asked, “Can you see them?”

Heimdall nodded. “I can.”

“How are they?” Loki asked.

“Well. They hope for the safe return of their friend.”

 _Return_ , Loki mused, as if Midgard now owned a piece of him. Loki nodded, trying to travel backwards through his memories to pinpoint that moment when strangers had become friends. When these Midgardians from a world of little consequence had managed to give Loki something that was entirely his own. Something not of Jotunheim, nor of Asgard.

Loki blinked tiredly, his body feeling heavy and uncomfortably warm. Heimdall was eyeing him closely. “You should return to the palace.”

“I just need some air,” Loki said. Looking into the dome, he added, “Cold air. Ice cold.”

“I am under instruction-”

“I can always find my own way,” Loki said. He smiled at Heimdall and added, “I will return swiftly. You have my word.”

Heimdall's brow lifted, a disbelieving expression on his face. “Your word.”

“Whatever that might be worth,” Loki said with a shrug.

It had to be worth something, because Heimdall eventually walked into the dome without further comment.

 

 

# *

Jotunheim felt like familiar ground this time, having now been tread so many times by Loki. He followed his guide in silence as he was taken to the city, dropping his cape on the way and relishing the cold. When Loki reached the throne room, Laufey was in talks with another Jotun, their heads bent towards each other as they quietly murmured, under the observation of silent guards. The Jotun unknown to Loki caught sight of him, touching Laufey's arm, who turned to see Loki. Laufey was still for a moment, before ushering everyone out of the room, leaving him alone with Loki.

He beckoned to Loki from where he sat on his throne. “Come.”

Loki left the threshold of the room to go stand before Laufey, giving him a nod. “I hope I'm not intruding.”

“No.” Laufey shook his head. He was looking closely at Loki, eyes flicking up and down. “You have healed well.”

“I have,” Loki said with a nod, before awkwardly trying to fix his gaze on another spot. “I... wanted to... thank-”

“False courtesy,” Laufey said flatly. “It does not become you.”

Loki allowed a smile to slowly creep across his mouth. “It doesn't, does it?”

Laufey's mouth curved fractionally as he said, “No. It does not.”

Loki looked up at Laufey, right into those bright red eyes he had feared as a child. Maybe it was exhaustion that compelled him to say things he might have otherwise held back, but he found himself telling Laufey, “All the same, I thank you. I doubt I could have healed myself unaided.”

Laufey stayed silent, his expression unreadable. After a moment he gave Loki an acknowledging nod. “Queen Frigga was here.”

“So I've heard,” Loki said.

“She is a formidable woman,” Laufey said. “She cares not for the size nor demeanour of Jotuns... apparently.”

Loki's brow climbed up into his hair as he searched for the right words. “Her anger was meant for me.”

Laufey shook his head, frowning. “All this time I have thought of you in the house of Odin, alone with that one-eyed son of Bor who sees only what he wants to see. But you had her. She who laid curses on everything from the top of the tree to the bottom, if anything happened to her precious son.”

“Thor is special to all-”

“You,” Laufey interrupted with a tone of impatience. “She laid curses on all those who might hurt you.”

Loki looked down at the mosaic on the floor, smiling slightly. “Sounds like her.”

“And him, the arrogant boy of Odin,” Laufey said, scowling. “He begged your mother to release him from the tether. I did not think she could do it, not after telling him that following you to Midgard could mean his death, but she did it in the end. Odin's boy pleaded until she let him go. The house of Odin has become quite the subject of idle gossip in these halls.”

Laufey looked rather annoyed. It was understandable. Loki found it hard to imagine gossiping Jotuns. He smiled, shrugging, “The house of Odin is filled with sentimental fools.”

“This I saw with my own eyes.” Laufey nodded in agreement. Quietly, he said, “I have never known someone to steal a throne just to burn.”

Loki swallowed at the words, grimacing. You're surrounded by ice, he told himself, there is nothing but cold here. He forced a smile to his mouth and said, “It is not as if I knew that would be the outcome of defeating the serpent.”

“Oh? What did you think it would be?” Loki blinked up at Laufey, before looking away with a shrug. “Death, was what Queen Frigga told me.”

“What does it matter?” Loki asked. “We both live.”

“You died. For a brief moment you died,” Laufey said, his voice not as hard and firm as Loki knew it. Laufey turned his face away from Loki's gaze, staring off into some dark space of the room. “You died and we all mourned you. Jotun and Asgardians alike.”

Loki squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. His body felt as if it was made of sand, likely to crumble at any moment. As for his mind, it was filled with death throes of the serpent, sharp memories of pain. Pressure around his forearm made him open his eyes. Laufey was on one knee before him, holding his arm, pushing up his sleeve before closing his hand around the bare flesh. Loki watched his skin turn blue and felt that soothing balm spread, his lungs unclenching, panic he didn't even realise was there subsiding.

“The venom of the creature is gone,” Laufey told Loki. “You are free of it.”

“Then why do I feel like the fire is still close at hand?” Loki asked, vacantly staring at Laufey.

Laufey moved his hand to cup Loki's face and the back of his head all in one gesture. “Memories can be cruel. I have memories that torment me from long before you were even born. Time has done nothing to take away their sting. The venom is still strong in your mind.”

Loki covered, if only partly, the hand on his face with his own, before gently pulling it away, watching the changes in his own skin, which bloomed blue. He let go of Laufey's hand, his fingers returning draining of colour.

“If I am Jotunblood, why am I not like you all the time?” Loki asked, frowning at his hand. Laufey stood up, looking somewhat surprised. It almost reminded Loki of being a child and asking Odin about the intricacies of child-bearing. “What?”

Laufey shook his head. “You are like your mother. She too could reflect all that was around her, only showing her Jotun side on touch. Her bloodline had both Asgardian and Jotun stock.”

“Asgardian,” Loki echoed quietly.

“Do not be so alarmed,” Laufey said, returning to his throne and sitting back down. “The house of Bor is not as pure as you might think. There was a time when both our realms knew friendship. Your mother hoped... no matter.”

Loki watched as Laufey straightened up, back to that regal Jotun warrior. Hard as all kings. Quietly, Loki told him, “You can tell me. About her. If you wish.”

How strange, Loki thought, no one on Asgard ever said that Jotun eyes could well up with tears. They had always been angry eyes, filled with malicious intent, villainous and untrustworthy. But Laufey's eyes were soft, filled with terrible hurt and sorrow. There was no fire in those red eyes.

“Another time perhaps,” Laufey said. “When you are fully recovered. You should return to Asgard. I am glad to see you well. I thank you for-”

“Don't,” Loki said with a smile. “It does not become you.”

“No. It does not,” Laufey said, nodding with clear amusement. “Go. Return to Asgard. You have many there who worry for you.”

Loki nodded, giving Laufey a short and sharp courteous bow of the head, before turning to leave. He was just outside the threshold of the throne room, when Laufey called out and said, “The weapon you have made use of recently.”

Loki stopped, not turning. “What of it?”

“It is your birthright, as my first born,” Laufey said. “A Jotun weapon for Jotun hands. Never let it be taken from you, and never let it pass it into the hands of another.”

Loki turned to look at Laufey, nodding. Laufey leaned back in his throne and seemed to sigh. He was looking the most content Loki had ever seen him. Loki found himself rooted to the ground, watching Laufey just staring ahead.

“Go,” Laufey said calmly. “Return to Asgard and be well.”

“Be well,” Loki told Laufey, giving him another look before leaving for Asgard.

 

 

# *

Though he didn't look surprised, Heimdall did look somewhat relieved on Loki's return. Loki would have teased Heimdall, but he felt depleted of his last grain of energy. He returned to the city as if in a trance, walking the halls like a lost ghost, a shadow against golden walls. The sound of light rain drew him outside into the royal gardens, where he walked a while before stopping and turning his face up to the afternoon sky, letting the rain caress his face.

There was a realm somewhere, he mused, where Loki of Asgard had died at the hands of his serpent child. That realm was continuing without him, maybe being devoured, maybe slaying the beast regardless. The were realms upon realms, filled with all those things Loki would, or would not, do. He looked down at his hands, watched them cupping the falling rain, bringing one up to see those droplets that escaped though his fingers.

“Loki.”

Loki blinked at Thor's voice, not turning to look at him. Looking at his hand, he said, “How frightening it is that the future could be entrusted to the hands of any fool.”

“Mother has everyone combing the palace for you,” Thor said. Loki turned and looked at Thor. His expression softened in a mere moment. Quietly, he said, “Come inside, Loki.”

“To watch you leave again?”

Thor looked away, mouth turned down miserably. “Don't.”

“Don't what?” Loki asked quietly. “You can barely look at me. You're that angry? I meant you no harm when I bound you to Jotunheim. You have to believe me. I am not the Loki the Svartálfar nightmare has shown you.”

Thor stared at him. “You think this is about some nightmare?”

Loki shrugged. “What else? What have I done to earn your anger? Everything I have done was for Asgard. For our mother and father. For _you_.”

“Nobody asked you to!” Thor snapped. There were tears of fury burning in his eyes, noticeable even in the rain. He pointed a finger in Loki's direction. “Who asked you to steal my fate from me? How could you think I would accept my life in exchange for yours? How did you think I could continue to _live_ knowing you died for me?”

Loki stepped towards Thor, reaching out to him. “Thor-”

“Don't,” Thor said thickly, holding up a hand and taking a step back. “I keep seeing you, your pain and your agony. It should have been me. You had no right to make that choice.”

Loki was silent for a moment, before he shook his head and laughed. “Should have been you? Why? Are you the only one fated to be brave? To save realms? What do I do while you play the hero, Thor? Stand in your shadow? Play the villain? _What_ would you have me do?”

Thor was quiet, something like fear playing in his eyes. Thor shook his head. “You twist my words.”

“ _No_ ,” Loki grated out. “I do not _twist_ your words. I lay bare the truth of the accusation you make, that somehow your claim to this hideous fate was stronger than mine. The beast was child of _my_ magic. It called _me_ father. If anyone was to put an end to that unfortunate creature's life, then it should have been _me_.”

Loki stopped, angrily brushing tears from his eyes. Calm restored, he said, “Perhaps it _is_ too hard to remember that I am not the Loki from your nightmare.” Thor stared at him in silence. “I saw it all when I touched the casket on Jotunheim. And I saw how you looked at me differently. You still have that look in your eyes. That fear.”

Thor shook his head. “It means nothing.”

“Doesn't it?” Loki asked. He swallowed, his throat clenching up to stop him from speaking. “How does something you lived mean nothing?”

Thor turned to leave. “Enough of this. Come inside.”

“Is it her?” Loki called out as Thor started to walk and continued walking. “Jane, isn't it? Jane Foster. Did I tell you I met her? On Midgard?”

Thor stopped and Loki stilled, his mouth clamping shut as he grimaced. Thor turned to look at him with a frown. “What are you saying?”

Loki didn't dare look at Thor's eyes for fear of seeing hope, or joy, or whatever it was Jane Foster's name was likely to bring. Flatly, he answered, “I saw her on Midgard.”

“Why would you tell me that?” Thor asked him, looking devastated.

“Look at you,” Loki said quietly. “A dream was all it took to chip away your arrogance. A dream of her.”

Thor shook his head. “This is madness.”

“Is it?” Loki asked, feeling numb at words he knew to be echoes. “All those times I begged you not to threaten the peace between our realms, and in the end it was a dream that changed your mind. Her mere shadow was all it took to alter you.”

Thor wiped away the rain from his face, shaking his head. “If this is a trick, it is a cruel one.”

“Oh, I agree,” Loki said, tiredly walking back towards the palace. Thor reached out for his arm, but Loki snatched his it away, telling Thor, “Go to her. I release you of all your oaths. You'll have the consort the Asgardians always wanted; in name alone.”

Loki walked away from Thor, who did not call out and did not follow. Not even when Loki sat in his bedchamber, exhausted and unable to sleep, glaring at the doors and willing Thor to walk in. Finally, Loki pulled on a fresh black tunic, closed the clasps on his boots and pulled on a short leather coat, pulling it tight, before smoothing back his hair. He snapped his fingers and a hand mirror flew towards him, obediently stopping before his face, where he stared at his grim expression, at his too pale complexion and his hollow eyes. He pressed two fingers to the glass, watching images slide by until he found the one he wanted. He could see the casket's reflection and close by he could see Stark.

Loki grinned, tutting at the wires attached to the casket, the machinery around it spitting out information. He slipped carefully from one side of the mirror to the other side of a glass screen. His presence was immediately registered, Stark being alerted to an intruder. Stark wheeled out out from behind a workstation, jumping up to his feet to stare at Loki. After a long bout of silence, he said, “I don't know who your guy is, but I am loving his work.”

Loki arched a brow, before turning his gaze to the casket which sat on a small electronic pedestal. “If you don't mind.”

Stark gritted his teeth, shoulders hunching as he brought up his hands. “One more day. Or maybe ten. Or you can move in and we could have joint custody for a while.”

Loki grinned, pointing his finger in the direction of the casket. The wires spontaneously snapped away from the casket, which then hovered up and flew towards Loki. Loki held both his hands either side of the casket, moving them in opposite directions and concealed the casket from view, after which he dusted off his hands and waved them in Stark's direction with a smile.

Stark blinked at him, nodding. “Disappointed, pissed off and a little impressed. I finally know what it's like to be in a relationship with me.”

Loki grinned. “As ever, a pleasure.”

Stark nodded, eyeing Loki again, now the casket was out of the way. “So... don't I owe you a drink or something?”

“Perhaps another time,” Loki said. Stark gave him a questioning look and Loki explained, “People to meet. By which I mean Barton. I'm sure he's inconsolable.”

“Oh yeah, been crying like a baby.” Stark nodded. Loki laughed quietly, turning to seek out a portal through which to leave. Stark stopped him, calling out. “Hey. Listen... what you did. That was... pretty impressive. Guess you're not the complete asshole I thought you might be.”

“Thank you,” Loki said, before smiling at Stark and telling him, “However, I am yet to find that out about you. Here's hoping.”

“Cold,” Stark said, just as Loki slipped away, a quick and elegant exit, but one that left him unsteady as he arrived at his destination.

Loki pitched forward, landing with a thud onto one knee, bracing himself against the wooden floor with his hand. His body was shaking, the air in his lungs thin. Reduced to this, he thought, smiling bitterly. Body trembling, his looked up at his Midgardian abode, the evening light filtering through the windows, stained with soft colours. Loki could hear footsteps in the stairwell, someone running upstairs. He tried to stand to avoid embarrassment, but seconds later, Rogers burst into the room, freezing just as he stepped inside. He stared at Loki who sat leaning on one hand, Rogers' eyes wide with surprise, mouth hanging slightly open. A second later, a huff of a laugh escaped him and he was smiling, shaking his head in disbelief.

Loki sighed up at Rogers. “A hand if you don't mind?”

Rogers darted to Loki's side, pulling him up easily, an arm wrapping around Loki's middle as he was carefully guided to his bed. Loki gave Rogers a look to indicate his annoyance at his own state as he sat down, Rogers taking it in his stride and sitting down next to him.

Loki blew out a breath and looked at the mirror in front of them, inert and covered with a white sheet. Loki nodded towards the covering. “Don't tell me you hate your own reflection. A truly horrifying thought.”

Rogers gave Loki a barely indulgent look, which felt good. Felt normal. “No, I do not hate my own reflection. I was in here the other day it just... well, kind of creeped me out.”

Loki frowned at Rogers and then at the mirror. He waved his hand in its general direction and the sheet whipped away to the floor. The mirror had a single crack that curved snake-like from top to bottom, splitting the mirror in two equal parts. As he and Rogers sat looking at it, they both occupied different sides of the crack. Loki tilted his head at his own reflection. There was no Jotun blue anymore. He looked pale, his eyes looking dark. Next to Loki, his body straining against the white and beige of his clothes, it was Rogers who looked like a god.

“That... did not use to be there,” Loki said.

“Should we be worried?” Rogers asked.

“The mirror was made near indestructible when the serpent used it as a portal to come to Midgard. Now that the serpent is gone, it has cracked. How curious,” Loki mused.

Rogers frowned next to him, scratching at the light stubble on his chin. “You think maybe something went back through it?”

Brows raised, Loki blinked at Rogers. “That's quite a deduction. Tell me, did you find the remains of the beast?”

“Nothing,” Rogers said with a shake of his head.

“I can't feel its presence,” Loki said, searching inwards for even a twinge, the tiniest sign that the serpent was still alive. “If it was still here... I would know. Surely, I would know.”

Rogers was looking at the mirror again. “Even if this isn't a portal anymore-”

“We need to be rid of it,” Loki said with a nod. He looked away from the mirror, diverting his attention to the room, which seemed tidier than he remembered it. He scowled at Rogers. “You cleaned?”

Rogers gave Loki an unimpressed look. “You almost died saving two worlds and this is what you want to talk about?”

“You know I hate it when you move my things,” Loki said, causing Rogers to sputter out a laugh. “We beat the beast and we saved two realms. What is there to talk about?”

Rogers swallowed, shaking his head, taking his time to get out the words, “You know if there was any way-”

“You could have taken my place, you would have,” Loki cut him off. “It is the mantra of the good; if only I could have suffered in your place.”

“Isn't that what you did?” Rogers asked. “Suffer so Thor wouldn't have to?”

“I fought the beast because my death was not written at its hands,” Loki said. “I did not choose to take the place of anyone's suffering.”

“What if you knew?” Rogers asked. “What if you knew what was going to happen?”

Loki gave Rogers an even look. “I would run. As far and fast as possible.”

Rogers was quiet. Loki waited for his judgement in silence. Rogers smiled and said, “I don't think I believe you.”

“Of course you don't,” Loki said with a snort. “You're _you_.”

Rogers was gracious enough to not argue Loki's point, staring down at his linked hands instead. After a moment, he turned to look at Loki and not his reflection. “So, how'd you get Thor to let you come back? When he came to get you, I could have sworn he looked like he wasn't going to let you out of his sight again.”

“Did he?” Loki asked absently, the smile on his face twisting bitterly.

“Yeah, he did,” Rogers said quietly. “He seems like a good guy.”

Loki gave Rogers a look. “And how many words did you exchange before you came to that conclusion?”

“Five.” Loki frowned at him. “ _It should have been me._ That's what he said when he found you. The mantra of the good, right?”

“The mantra of the good,” Loki muttered, as he stared ahead at the mirror, his eyes following the curve of the crack, blinking tiredly.

Rogers got up slowly, placing a hand on Loki's shoulder. “Come on. Let's go grab some food. You look like you could eat.”

Loki got up and followed, his mind on cracked mirrors and meddling Midgardians.

 

 

# *

It was evening on Midgard and the weather was temperate. Loki and Rogers walked side by side to the diner they had often frequented. How strange it was to walk this street as ordinarily as Loki might have strolled through the corridors of the Asgardian palaces. How easily he followed Rogers into the diner, taking a seat in a red-leathered booth, watching Rogers pull off his leather jacket, watching the street outside, where people walked about their business.

“What?” Rogers asked when Loki couldn't pull his gaze away from the window.

“I have seen glimpses of other realities. Seen myself in them, always an agent of a chaos. Why should this reality be any different? What's so special about this place?” Loki pondered.

“You are,” Rogers answered. Loki turned to frown at him, finding that ridiculously earnest expression Rogers wore most of the time. He shrugged and added, “You put yourself on the line, saved two worlds. You made the ultimate sacrifice. That counts for something.”

“Does it?” Loki asked quietly, back to watching the window. “I wonder if all that chaos has been purged from my body in the beast's attempt to incinerate me. My trial by fire, the memories of which I must bear with utmost clarity. It makes me wonder if this is some kind of punishment. Isn't that strange? That surviving should feel like a punishment?”

Rogers looked caught up in his own thoughts as he absently replied, “Having to carry on can feel that way sometimes. But that's what you do. You find the strength – stand up – you always stand up.”

Loki smiled. “Well... if you ever need a hand to stand up, do say so. There may be an agent of Asgard nearby.”

“Agent of Asgard?” Rogers asked.

“Better than an agent of chaos.” Loki shrugged. “And it seems like the kind of thing that might irritate Barton. Besides, I'm more in the line of aiding and abetting than avenging – so, consider me an agent, if not entirely an Avenger. Ah, talking of Avengers, I see Dana is working today. You do know what my thoughts on her are, don't you?”

Rogers sighed. “Potential Avenger.”

Loki waved Dana over with a grin, telling Rogers, “Potential Avenger.”

 

 

# *

The weather had turned chilly by the time they left the diner, having eaten little and skirted around a lot of conversations Loki didn't particularly want to have. Rogers strolled next to Loki, hands in pockets and quiet contentment radiating off him. Loki thought of Thor, that break in his arrogance, all from a dream. But not just any dream, Loki conceded to himself, it was the dream of a possibility, a dream where a Midgardian softened the heart of Odin's son. It was, if not palatable, perhaps understandable.

These Midgardians, Loki thought somewhat irritably as he fell onto his bed, turning his gaze to the cracked mirror. He fell asleep quickly, the food in his stomach sitting heavily and his body still feeling the exhaustion of healing. It was a heavy sleep, the kind that made him feel he was being crushed under the weight of something big, being pinned down into the mattress. However, when he awoke, it wasn't because of the aches in his limbs. It was a sound, a whispering.

_itwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcome_

Loki sat up, his eyes shifting from side to side. He could hear music drifting from all the way downstairs where Rogers was working his way through one of his lists. Loki slowly got out of bed, still fully dressed. He walked towards the music, reaching out to open a door.

_itwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcomeitwillcome_

Loki's fingers curled away from the doorknob and he turned around, towards the hiss-whisper. The sheet covering the mirror was fluttering, though there was no breeze in the room.

_ragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragna_

Loki reached out towards the mirror, jerking his hand to the side, watching the sheet flip up and away. The mirror reflected back an image of him, fear tightening his features.

_Ragna... Ragna... Ragna..._

Loki slowly drifted towards the mirror. The whispers got louder. Loki peered into the mirror, his eyes on the crack.

_Ragna... Ragna... Ragna..._

A hand darted out and grabbed Loki around the throat, dragging him in. He was entangled in a cloth of dark, hurling through images, down murky paths. He saw blood and war. He saw Asgard burn and turn to dust. He saw the blinking of Odin's one eye, and heard the howling of a wolf. He saw a tower of fire grow in front of him, hearing the sound of thunder in the distance.

_ragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragnaragna_

Loki shut his eyes and clamped his hands over his ears.

_“It's coming!”_

Loki's eyes snapped open when he recognised the voice, _his_ voice. He was standing in a pitch black cave, with a giant rock at the center. Chained to the rock was a man, pale and gaunt, his face turned away, his black hair long and unkempt.

“Ragnarok. Ragnarok. Ragnarok,” he kept repeating.

Loki walked around the rock, the prisoner's face coming into view, a reflection of Loki. His green unseeing eyes were turned upwards as he kept repeating the same word over and over. Loki followed his blind gaze. There was something up there in the black, watching him with dark intent. When it hissed, the chained man screamed in pain and the ground shook.

“It will come,” someone whispered in Loki's ear. “It will come.”

Loki was dragged backwards, slamming against a rock hard surface, chains wrapping tight around his wrists, pulling him flush against the curve of the rock he had seen. Over him, the black shifted and breathed sulphur. He began to burn. He began to burn all over again and he tried to scream, but his mouth was stitched shut. All he could do was keen and struggle with desperation.

“Loki!” Loki shook his head, grimacing as his eyes filled with hot tears. “Listen to my voice, Loki.”

“Loki, you're dreaming. Come on, you need to wake up.” A firm hand on his shoulder gently shook him, focusing his senses.

Loki blinked, gulping air into his panicked lungs. The dream snapped as soon as reality solidified. He was kneeling on the ground in the pouring rain, the sky above him gurgling. Loki was completely soaked through, as was Rogers, kneeling before him, squinting against the rain in his eyes, his clothes plastered to his body. Rogers managed to look bright even in the dark of night, lit by the street lamps, rainwater looking as though it was clinging to him rather than falling away.

“What happened?” Loki asked thickly.

“You were dreaming.” Loki's head snapped around to find Thor behind him, raindrops rolling down his face, his hair hanging limp. It was his arm wrapped around Loki's chest, holding him up. Loki shook slightly, his fingers gripping Thor's fisted hand.

“Let's get inside. I think we've scared the neighbours enough,” Rogers said. Thor helped Loki to his feet, the three of them walking back inside together, Loki half held up by Thor. Rogers nodded towards the stairs leading to Loki's room, telling Thor. “I'll get some towels.”

Loki silently let Thor help him up the stairs until he felt some of his balance return. Once through the doors, Loki slowly pulled away whilst Thor wiped the back of his hand across his own wet face, his worried eyes still on Loki. Loki stared past him at the stairs past the door, curling downwards, music drifting up them, the same voices that had penetrated his dream. He scowled, looking away at the mirror, still cracked. Still... whispering? Or was that just the memory of dark magic?

In the mirror, Loki could see Thor stepping closer. Loki turned to him as he reached out tentatively, using two fingers to push away a strand of wet hair stuck to Loki's face. Loki followed the movement, watched as Thor's fingers came back to the corner of Loki's mouth. He stubbornly resisted looking at Thor for a moment, but then his eyes flicked up and locked with Thor's bright blue gaze. With one desperate utterance, Thor seemed to open up everything in his heart and mind.

“Loki,” he whispered.

Loki stepped forward and Thor pulled him close into a kiss with a broken gasp. His mouth felt miserable on Loki's, his arms closing tight around Loki. Loki allowed it, his hands drifting up to curl against Thor's back, his mouth seeking out another kiss and then another. They were both breathing hard and shaking when they pulled apart, Thor's hands still on Loki, hovering and gently pulling at him. Hurried footsteps up the stairs made Loki pull away and he turned to see Rogers walk in with a handful of towels and a very familiar object in his other hand which made both Loki and Thor stare at him in shocked silence.

“You left this outside,” Rogers said, holding up Mjölnir. Thor was blinking stupidly at it, while Loki stared at Rogers. Rogers scowled at them both. “It _is_ yours, isn't it?”

Thor nodded slowly, reaching out and taking the hammer. “It is. Thank you.”

Rogers passed the towels to Loki, asking him, “Everything okay here?”

“The opposite,” Loki said flatly. “But where we come from, that's quite normal.”

Rogers nodded. “I have... no idea what that means.”

“I need you to do something for me, Thor.” Loki turned his attention to Thor who was scowling at Mjölnir. Thor arched a brow at Loki, following his gaze when Loki turned in the direction of the mirror. “I need you to close a door. To smash that mirror to pieces.”

Loki watched the mirror, seeing Thor's confused reflection, his gaze turning to Rogers. Rogers' expression stayed neutral, his eyes meeting Loki's for a moment. Thor frowned for a moment and then swung the hammer, smashed the mirror to pieces on impact, breaking it like ice, not glass and metal, every inch of it shattering and falling to the floor, Mjölnir whipping back into Thor's hand almost as immediately as it had left.

“Nice throw.” Rogers arched a brow at the hammer, before holding out his hand. “Steve Rogers. Never really had a chance to introduce myself the last time we met.”

“Thor of Asgard,” Thor said, grasping Rogers firmly by the forearm. Thor glanced at Loki before looking back at Rogers and telling him, “And friend of Midgard.”

Rogers smiled warmly, before nodding at Loki. “Know what I'm thinking?”

Loki looked at Thor and Rogers, somehow having moved to stand side by side. Loki allowed his mouth the twitch of a smile, telling Rogers, “Potential Avengers material?”

Rogers grinned, unaware of fate playing one of its little games.

 

 

# *

Loki jolted awake just as his eyes started to shut, not enamoured with the prospect of falling asleep. The world was currently upside down, the ground where the ceiling should have been. The mirror was still scattered across the floor, tiny perfect spheres shining like diamonds. Loki would take handfuls of the mirror and cast them as far from each other as possible.

Lifting his head up, Loki peered down at himself. He and Thor were half-entangled with each other and half with the bedsheets. Thor had fallen asleep where he moved last, half draped on Loki, half on the bed, his thick heavy arm slung across Loki's stomach, his face pressed against Loki's side. Loki idly toyed with Thor's hair, wrapping strands around his fingers.

“You're snoring,” Loki whispered.

Thor slept on, or at least pretended to for a while, before muttering. “Liar.”

Loki grinned, eyeing the top of Thor's head. Quietly, he asked, “Why did you come?”

Thor sighed, fidgeting at Loki's side. Loki could feel the shift in Thor's senses as he became alert, the lashes of his blinking eyes soft and feather-like as they touched Loki's skin. Thor was breathing in Loki, pressing his forehead against Loki's ribs, mouthing his flesh. “I would follow you anywhere.”

“Anywhere?” Loki smiled. “What if it was a place where no one can follow?”

Thor looked up at Loki, and his blue eyes held universes of possibility in them. “There is no place that could keep me from following you.”

Loki stared at Thor in silence, pondering the answer, before he pushed the armour of a wide grin into place. Thor just blinked at him, his expression remaining earnest, so naked it hurt to look at him. Loki let the smile drop away, reaching out to stroke Thor's face, whispering, “Sentiment.”

Thor turned towards Loki's fingers, nuzzling them before laying his head back down, content to like there and keep his hold on Loki. Loki let him sleep, sensing exhaustion in Thor's heavy form. When it seemed Thor was deep into his slumber, Loki carefully slipped out from beneath him and gathered up his tunic and breeches from the floor, pulling them on quickly. After the first few times he trod on the pieces of the broken mirror, he pulled on his boots too, leaving them unclasped.

Loki turned to leave the room, stopping when he saw Mjölnir obediently sitting on the floor, handle leaning towards Thor. Loki turned towards it, taking a few steps until the hammer was at his feet. How effortlessly Rogers lifted this burden of the virtuous, as if it weighed no more than a simple lump of metal. Loki arched his brow at the hammer, opening his hand and flexing his fingers. Slowly, he reached down and gripped the handle. His heart fluttered in his chest. He grit his teeth, prepared to pull... and let go.

Curling his lip at the hammer, he said, “You're not my type.”

He turned around and strode out of the room without another glance at Mjölnir, quite certain that in Thor and Rogers, the universe already had too many virtuous warriors. As he descended the stairs, he was met with the echoing sounds of music drifting all the way from Rogers' room. The words _if you try the best you can, If you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough _floated towards Loki, hypnotic and lulling. He quietly entered the small corridor outside Rogers' room, the door to which was open. Rogers was lying in bed, on top of the covers, still fully dressed, eyes closed, one arm folded under his head, the other limp on his stomach, a faded photograph held loosely in his hand, as loose as anyone's grasp on the past.__

__Loki stared at him and wondered what kind of strings the fates and wound around this man. Turning around, Loki headed back out into the silence of the library. He walked amongst the shelves in the dark, the light of the moon split by the blinds and scattered across the resting books. The book he was looking for was a hefty tome. When he found it, as ever the first thing he did was look at the cover, a forest green with a gilded tree. He traced the tree from branches to roots before opening the book, flicking to the ending and beginning of worlds, to Ragnarok._ _

__“Let it come,” he whispered. “I'll be waiting.”_ _

__With that promise, he smiled and snapped the book shut._ _

__\- the end -_ _


	19. Chapter 19

**Finished reading? Enjoy the credits:**

 

 _[Sad But True - Metallica](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_4OfD-wmGs)_ (which I listened to _a lot_ writing this)

 

 

# -if you stayed until after the credits –

 

Kyr was shaking. The shackles kept his magic tamed and stopped his body from healing from the torture. All he could do was sit, wait and shake. The door to his cell opened and he could see Alflyse hiding in the dark of the corridor. She was fearless enough to submit him to pain, but not so much that she could look him in the eyes.  
  
A shrouded figure walked, bringing with him a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature outside the cell. Kyr could make out just a part of his face, square and reptilian looking. Outside the cell, Alflyse completely slipped away.  
  
“I am sent by my master,” the visitor spoke. “I seek a smith of the highest order.”  
  
Kyr lifted up his shackled hands and gave his visitor a brittle smile. “A shackled smith is of no use to you.”  
  
“Then you shall be freed.”  
  
Kyr was confused, and it must have shown on his face. “What does your master want from me?”  
  
“The Tesseract has awakened. It is on a little world. A human world,” the visitor said. “They would wield its power. My master... would prefer they do not. You will find it and bring it to us. You will be given all that you need to accomplish the task. And more.”  
  
The possibility of freedom swelled in Kyr's heart, along with the possibility of revenge. Kyr held up his shackled hands and smiled. “When do we start?”

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt: 
> 
> _[With Loki's long history of ditching lovers at the first signs of true commitment/marriage it was - in retrospect - a very bad idea to schedule his wedding to Thor immediately after Thor's coronation.](http://norsekink.livejournal.com/8195.html?thread=16648195#t16648195)_
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos - much appreciated. Hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I loved writing it <3


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